


All I Want for Candlenights

by amethystviolist



Category: TAZ: Balance - Fandom, The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: (and it's several months late), (and technically unfinished), (even if i never got anything), Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Party, Christmas Presents, Crew as Family, Family Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Multi, Presents, TAZ Candlenights Exchange 2018, taakitz, yes i know it isn't christmas but those are the available tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2019-11-27 15:51:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18196217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amethystviolist/pseuds/amethystviolist
Summary: “Well, I hadn’t thought I would ever say this, but I suppose it’s a good thing I nearly burned down both of our apartments,” Kravitz said soberly. There was a brief second of silence, enough time for Kravitz to wonder if he had fucked it up, when Taako’s unique peal of laughter rang throughout the kitchen again.“I don’t know if I would go that far!” Taako said, amusement clear in his voice. “Candlenights alone is still better than Candlenights on fire!”“It is called ‘Candlenights,’ some amount of fire is implied just in the name,” Kravitz argued playfully.Five years of gifts Kravitz gives Taako at Candlenights, and what he gets return.





	1. A Phone Number

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilydzieart](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=lilydzieart).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is.......... so much fluff. I've never written so much fluff. I'm fully into it. Also lilydzieart on Tumblr, I am so, so sorry this is now March, and not December. I swear I had three chapters all done but then the last two just... eluded me. And are still being sneaky little bitches. So they'll go up later, I guess. Please enjoy.

“Are you certain you don’t want us to bring anything?”

“Yes, I’m sure!” Kravitz said warmly, squishing the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he quickly disconnected the smoke alarm before it could go off. “Everything is fine here, totally fine.”

“Very well,” his mother said, and another voice murmured something in the background as Kravitz hopped off the dining room chair and started frantically fanning the dark smoke rising from the oven. “Oh, and Istus says if you want to invite anyone, you certainly should! We are hopeful that you have a few new friends, now that you’ve lived in Neverwinter for half a year.”

Kravitz laughed a little absently, turning the stovetop fan to its maximum setting. “Oh, I haven’t had a lot of time for new friends with this... new case. Miller is still elusive as ever, but I have at least made progress while I’ve been here.”

There was a shuffling sound on the other end, and then a smoother voice than his mother’s said, “Krav, dear, don’t work yourself to death over there! There’s much more to life than hunting criminals, as I have certainly tried to teach your mom here!”

“Of course, Istus,” Kravitz agreed somewhat absently, pulling the overflowing pot off the stove with a lot more calm than he was feeling. Steam rose from the burner in a furious hiss and intertwined with the increasing amount of smoke slipping through the over door. “Anyway I need to- to, uh, set the table! I’ll see you in an hour and a half, drive safely!”

“Love you!” Istus called in the background, and his mother added closer to the phone, “We will see you soon, my son.”

“Goodbye, yes, see you soon!” Kravitz finished hastily, and spared a moment to hang up the call before shoving his phone in his pocket and rushing to open the oven door. He’d thought a little bit of smoke was normal, but this much was surely not right-

Bright orange flames licked around the blackened ham in the middle of the oven. Smoke now billowed freely throughout his kitchen, making Kravitz cough slightly as he shoved his hands into oven mitts and thrust them almost blindly into the oven. He withdrew the flaming pan and nearly flung it in the sink, turning on the faucet full force. The flames were doused with an immediate hiss, and Kravitz sighed in relief.

Then, naturally, someone knocked loudly on the door, right as Kravitz realized the oven mitts were also on fire.

So when Kravitz unthinkingly yanked his door open without checking who it was - he had honestly assumed it would be the fire department - he was sporting a skeleton-patterned apron spotted with burn marks and smoke stains, a few of his dreads were hanging oddly in front of his face as they escaped from the bun at the back of his head, and in combination with the still-smoking oven mitts in one hand, Kravitz undoubtedly looked like a madman.

Unfortunately for his kitchen, perhaps, the person on the other side was certainly not a fireman. The person standing there _was_ , however, probably the most handsome man Kravitz had ever laid eyes on, and _at this point_ , Kravitz thought, _yes, this might as well happen_.

“Hello,” Kravitz said calmly, ignoring the smoke seeping into the hallway. “May I help you?”

The handsome man offered a polite smile, and said in a somewhat high, lightly accented voice, “Hey my dude, uh, I live next door, and I smelled something burning in a major way?” The stranger critically looked Kravitz up and down, making him incredibly self-conscious of his currently disheveled appearance.

“Everything is under control,” Kravitz lied easily.

Of course, at that exact moment, as if universe wanted to say “fuck you today in particular,” the oven mitts in his hand reignited.

“Fuck!” the stranger yelled on behalf of the universe, and immediately slapped the oven mitts out of a dumbstruck Kravitz’s hand, stomping the baby flames out on the floor. “What the hell is going on in here?!”

“Well-” Kravitz began sheepishly, but the man pushed past Kravitz and into his apartment without waiting for further explanation or permission.

“I live next door to this place! If you burn down your apartment then I guess it’s your business, but don’t take my sweet crib down with it!” the man yelled, and began rushing around Kravitz’s kitchen. He turned off the burners and the oven before pulling the remaining pot and pan off the stove, clicking his tongue disapprovingly at the charred contents, and stalked across the living room to shove one of the windows wide open, effectively trading smoke for snow in Kravitz’s apartment. As the smoke slowly cleared, the stranger scrubbed at the black spots on the stovetop with Kravitz’s sponge, making small noises of further disapproval from time to time.

Kravitz realized he was staring, and he cleared his throat quickly as he belatedly nudged the door closed. “Thank you, I… I may have _not_ had everything under control.”

“You’re telling me, homie,” the stranger said grumpily. “This is embarrassing at a level I’ve never before been forced to witness, and this is coming from the man who’s been forced to watch Merle fuckin’ Highchurch absolutely destroy a perfectly good pot of _water_. It’s a small miracle your fire alarm didn’t go off and force the whole building out into the cold for an hour- which is lucky for you it didn’t, because I would have been _so_ pissed.”

Kravitz winced slightly, glancing at the smoke alarm dangling uselessly from the ceiling. The name the man mentioned rang a faint bell somewhere in Kravitz’s memory, but he couldn’t place it at the moment, so he immediately forgot all about it. He continued to stand by dumbly as his hot neighbor began dumping his previous attempts at dinner into the garbage, before digging into Kravitz’ cabinets and pulling down cans of vegetables and small containers of various spices, talking all the while.

“And _clearly_ you need someone competent in the kitchen, because you are most certainly not, and someone making this much food on Candlenights Eve either has family or an S-O coming over. Am I right?” the man asked, barely turning his head to glance back at Kravitz with one raised eyebrow.

“Oh. Yes,” Kravitz managed to say through his residual shock. Should he be letting this guy take over his kitchen? “My mother and her wife. They’ll be here in an hour and a half. But you-”

“I mean, I can make that happen, but it’ll be all hands on deck, so grab a sponge and start washing those pans if you want this to work,” the man said over him.

“-don’t have to do anything more here,” Kravitz finished somewhat weakly. Alright, fine. Maybe it wasn’t the wisest idea. But if a hot man who knew his way around the kitchen was saving Kravitz’s Candlenights Eve dinner, who was he to deny the help?

So Kravitz took up a sponge and started scrubbing. The crusty black goop was hard to get out of most of the containers, but one by one, Kravitz silently produced clean pots and pans that were promptly whisked away to be filled with unknown substances. The stranger had no qualms rifling through the drawers for utensils or hunting in Kravitz’s fridge for milk and butter, and soon, the lingering smell of charred mistakes was hidden by the delicious scent of hope wafting out from under the stranger’s busy, capable hands. Maybe Kravitz was getting too poetic about it, but he _did_ almost burn down his apartment today, and that tended to invite some dramatics.

When the dishes were done, Kravitz hovered slightly to the side of the kitchen, watching in awe as Hot Chef Neighbor whisked something in a pot, sprinkling in a dash of some seasoning with surprising flair at the same time. Two pots bubbled gently on the freshly-cleaned stove, a pan sizzled with something that smelled _delicious_ , and the oven hummed softly as it heated up for what looked like a tray of cookie dough waiting on the counter.

“You’re _amazing_ ,” Kravitz said honestly, unable to help the observation.

The man glanced up and flashed him a winning smile. “Well, duh, Bone Man! I’m Taako? From TV?”

This meant absolutely nothing to Kravitz, so he decided to just… ignore it. “It’s a true pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is Kravitz Reaper.”

For some reason, Taako snorted at his name, repeating his surname under his breath, but the stranger didn’t comment on it. Kravitz knew his surname was unusual, but most people didn’t snort when they heard it.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” Taako replied easily, stirring one pot and adding something diced and green to another. “It’s not every day I provide my extraordinary culinary skills to someone who’s not a customer.”

Kravitz started, and reached immediately for his pocket. “Oh, I can- I can pay you, of course, I wouldn’t dream of taking advantage of your help today-”

But Taako waved one hand dismissively, not even looking at Kravitz as he slid the pan of cookies into the oven. “Just this once, it’s on the house, Skeletor, because I’d rather make your food for you than move apartments because some clown burned mine down. Do you know how much work it is to change addresses?”

“It can be incredibly inconvenient,” Kravitz agreed without thinking. When Taako looked at him with apparent disinterest but waved for him to go on, he shuffled slightly and elaborated, “Uh, I moved here seven months ago.”

“For business or for pleasure?” Taako asked, leaning back on the counter in what seemed to be a brief moment of respite.

“Business, unfortunately,” Kravitz replied with a shrug. “Some might say I’m a bit of a workaholic.”

“Mmm, know the feeling,” Taako nodded, glancing at the softly bubbling pot for a moment. “So, what sorta business you into, then?”

Kravitz pursed his lips and tried to ignore the somewhat sly look on his neighbor’s face. While not exactly a secret, his line of work often required some degree of deception. Still, he decided he might as well give Taako a job title, if not any details about his current cases.

“I’m actually a fugitive recovery agent,” Kravitz told his unexpected guest. “I seek and apprehend convicted criminals who try to flee before their trial begins.”

Taako, who had turned back to his work cooking while Kravitz mulled over his answer options, suddenly whirled, eyes wide and excited. “You’re- _Dude_ , you’re a fucking _bounty hunter_?”

Kravitz wrinkled his nose. “I prefer the term ‘fugitive recovery-”

“A real life bounty hunter!” Taako crowed over him, waving a spoon covered in some sort of gravy in the air excitedly. “No fucking way!” Then, barely any quieter, “Your job really _is_ as sexy as you are!”

Immediately, heat rose to Kravitz’s cheeks. Taako didn’t seem to realize the effect his words had on Kravitz, and laughed to himself again, muttering ‘a fucking bounty hunter!’ under his breath as he checked inside the oven.

“Uh, what’s your work, then?” Kravitz changed subjects quickly.

“Oh, I’m a professional chef,” Taako replied easily, “which is _almost_ as sexy a job as bounty hunter, natch.”

A professional chef? Saving his Candlenights family dinner? For _free_?

“Now I _definitely_ feel like I’m legally obligated to compensate you for saving my life,” Kravitz said, wondering if he could sneakily google how much you should pay a private chef working the holidays.

“Hmm, you’re insisting on compensation you say?” Taako mused, pulling a tray of perfectly baked chocolate chip cookies out of the oven and balancing it carefully on a wire cooling rack Kravitz didn’t remember owning. Taako flicked his eyes over to Kravitz, that same sly look coming back to his face. “Well, perhaps we could come to an arrangement.”

Kravitz refused to be continuously flustered around this man, even if he was unfairly attractive and had just single-handedly saved his Candlenights. So with an even tone, he offered, “Certainly. Would you care to have dinner with me and my parents? I hear a professional chef is catering the meal tonight.”

To his surprise, Taako let out a cackling laugh that made Kravitz’s heart swell for some reason. “Funny, I heard that rumor too! Well if you insist, Grim Reaper-” oh, that was why he had laughed at his surname earlier, “- I don’t usually meet the parents so early in a relationship, but for you…” Taako’s eyes swept over Kravitz’s face, smirking a little as he looked him over, “I’ll make an exception. Not like I was doing anything else.”

“No big plans for Candlenights?” Kravitz asked lightly, in the same teasing tone, but this time Taako’s face visibly fell, though the expression was quickly masked with a thinner smile.

“Nope! Everyone’s out of town this year, leaving poor old me all alone for the holidays!” Taako said cheerfully, but his shoulders were significantly tenser. Kravitz just nodded.

“Well, I hadn’t thought I would ever say this, but I suppose it’s a good thing I nearly burned down both of our apartments,” Kravitz said soberly. There was a brief second of silence, enough time for Kravitz to wonder if he had fucked it up, when Taako’s unique peal of laughter rang throughout the kitchen again.

“I don’t know if I would go that far!” Taako said, amusement clear in his voice. “Candlenights alone is still better than Candlenights _on fire_!”

“It is called ‘Candlenights,’ some amount of fire is implied just in the name,” Kravitz argued playfully, leaning against the doorframe as he watched Taako pull out serving bowls and produce heaps of side dishes along the counter. “Uh, do you need help with anything?”

“The word ‘candle’ is all the fire I need in my holidays, thank you very much,” Taako said with a sniff, and then inclined his head toward the cabinet holding dinner plates (how did he know?). “But yeah, if you wanna set the table, the food’s ready and your moms are due here in something like five minutes.”

Kravitz followed the instructions readily, pulling open the cabinet and stacking plates on one arm, before he paused for a moment. “Taako,” he said slowly, “Are you… That is, how many plates should I really get?”

As much fun as talking and joking with Taako had been, Kravitz really didn’t want to pressure him into having dinner with his parents. They’d only known each other for an _hour and a half_. Their dynamic felt very natural to Kravitz, but he knew firsthand how uncomfortable it could be to have dinner with a stranger, and he didn’t want Taako to feel like he had do anything he wasn’t comfortable with.

Taako did hesitate for half a second, but his voice was firm with certainty when he said, “Four plates, my man, if you’re sure about having the chef sit with you!”

“It would be an honor,” Kravitz replied, getting four sets of silverware as well. “As long as you’re sure you’re willing to brave meeting two more strangers.”

“Well it’s better than unknown fire hazards, and I’ve been there, done that one,” Taako said with a grin and a wink.

Smiling, Kravitz set the table and closed the window Taako had previously opened to clear the room of smoke - there was a small pile of snow on the floor, slowly melting into his carpet, but Kravitz just tossed a folded towel over it and decided he’d deal more with that later. He took a few minutes to straighten out his clothing, removing the skeleton apron (which probably helped the ‘Grim Reaper’ jokes a lot, actually, now that he remembered it) and retying his hair back into a manageable style. Meanwhile, Taako brought out dish after dish of delicious-looking food, so much food that Kravitz thought he must have conjured half of it into existence. He didn’t remember having green beans in the pantry, but there they were in a serving dish, sprinkled with pepper and steaming slightly in the cool air. Mashed potatoes, corn, fresh fish with lemon, a plate of warm rolls he’d never even noticed going in the oven, and a covered plate that likely contained cookies all graced the table, and Kravitz was even more impressed than he’d been already.

“This is phenomenal,” Kravitz said sincerely. “I’ve never seen anything like this, and you pulled it off so quickly!”

“You should see me take my time pulling things off,” Taako replied smoothly, and thus was solely responsible for Kravitz looking so flushed when he answered the sharp rapping at the door mere seconds later.

“Kravitz!” Istus said warmly, enveloping him in a hug. “It’s wonderful to see you!” She pulled away, smiling, and then cocked her head when she saw his face. “Are you alright? You look a little flustered.”

“D-do I? Probably just the- the heat from the oven,” Kravitz lied, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. Istus raised an eyebrow but stepped inside without further comment, leaving his mother standing before him, dressed in ‘elegant yet professional’ black as always, and smiling lovingly at him (which, to anyone else, probably just looked like a subtle, polite smile).

“Hello, Mother,” he said warmly, stretching out a hand. To his surprise, his mother drew him into a hug as well, briefer than Istus’s but a hug nonetheless. She wasn’t usually a particularly openly-affectionate woman, though she had always made certain Kravitz felt loved and cared for.

“I have missed you,” she said simply, and then stepped out of the surprise embrace and into the spacious apartment.

Istus was looking between Taako and Kravitz with a mischievous, excited glint in her eyes that definitely worried Kravitz. Taako, for his part, looked rather bored, but his shoulders were tense again like when Kravtiz had asked about his plans for Candlenights.

“Mother, Istus,” Kravitz began hastily, “I’d like you to meet my neighbor, Taako…” He didn’t know Taako’s surname. Shit, fuck, how did he not-

“Yes, the one and only amazing Taako Tostaada, it’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Taako picked up the trail of conversation easily.

“The pleasure is all ours,” Istus returned warmly, and his mother inclined her head in agreement.

Kravitz withheld a sigh of relief and continued the introductions. “And Taako, this is my mother, Raven-” the tall woman nodded regally, “- and her wife, Istus.” The woman with bluish-silver hair that almost seemed to glow gave a smile and a little wave.

“We were so hoping Kravitz had made more friends than he told us about-” Istus began, but Kravitz cleared his throat pointedly, and Istus quieted. She still gave him an all-too-knowing look that Taako almost certainly noticed.

“Shall we sit down to dinner while it’s hot?” Raven asked, eyeing the food with a slight tilt to her mouth that meant she was impressed.

“Yes, Taako has truly outdone himself!” Kravitz said quickly, relieved to shift the conversation.

Taako sat down across from Kravitz, putting himself next to Istus, and flapped one hand dismissively. “Oh, please. This was a rescue mission out of the goodness of my heart! It takes more than this to outdo Taako.”

The rest of dinner went surprisingly smoothly. Kravitz’s mothers didn’t seem to question how long he and Taako had known each other, and seemed genuinely interested in getting to know Taako while balancing asking Kravitz questions about his own life. Raven occasionally made allusions to how Kravitz needed to get out more, and Istus mentioned how he was ‘such a catch’ for anyone looking, but Kravitz always intervened in time to keep things from becoming too awkward.

He learned that Taako was one of two Head Chefs - an odd managerial choice, Kravitz thought - at the IPRE’s fledgling charity organization, the Bureau of Benevolence

He learned that Taako had a large, unusual family, was maybe an actual rocket scientist as well as professional chef, and had possibly really been on television at some point. He learned that Taako had a tendency to talk with his hands, liked to be dramatic, and was smart and funny as well as attractive.

In short, Kravitz learned that he wanted to keep Taako Tostaada in his life if possible, and not just because he had saved Candlenights.

So when the evening was drawing to a close, the wine glasses (and a bottle and a half next to them) empty at last, maybe it was the alcohol or the near-death experiences from earlier, but Kravitz found the courage to jot down his number on a post-it note and press it into Taako’s hand as he was leaving.

“What’s this?” Taako asked curiously, holding up the little yellow paper.

Kravitz shrugged, trying to act casual. “I thought you might want to hang out again sometime, without the danger of me burning down our apartments.”

A small laugh burst out of Taako, sounding almost involuntary. “Oh! I mean, yeah, right, that’s great and everything. But I meant _what is this_? As in, where did you get this post-it note so fast?”

“Oh.” Kravitz wasn’t sure how to take that, but he recovered from the maybe-rejection quickly. “I keep a little notepad on me, so I don’t forget anything important.”

Taako stared at him for a moment with an unreadable expression, before looking back down at the paper and shaking his head, a tiny smile crossing his lips. Kravitz almost swore he heard him mutter, “Nerd alert,” but maybe it was just the hum of the radiator in the background.

“So...Uh, thank you for coming. And saving my life,” Kravitz said, holding out his hand.

Taako took it, shaking his hand firmly with a confident smirk crossing his face. “Hey, I’m what they call an everyday hero, babe. Catch me on the news special tomorrow night saving kittens and shit.”

“Oh no, don’t tell me I’ve endangered kittens in this future,” Kravitz said with mock worry.

Taako nodded solemnly. “You’re a menace to society, Bone Man.” Then he grinned widely, and tipped the edge of an invisible hat. “So, uh, see you around, neighbor.”

“Goodnight, Taako,” Kravitz replied, smiling back, and shut his apartment door behind his new friend. Only then did he realize how quiet his apartment had gotten. Kravitz turned around quickly, and found both of his parents staring at him blatantly, Istus wearing what could only be described as a shit-eating grin on her face, his mother smirking as she swirled the dregs of wine in her glass. They stared at each other for a few seconds of silence.

“I give it two years,” his mother said after a moment of thought.

“Oh no, dearest, it’ll be this time of year, four- maybe five years from now. It’s fate,” Istus said with certainty.

“Until what?” Kravitz asked defensively.

“The wedding,” both mothers said in unison, and then toasted each other briefly, chuckling.

Kravitz covered his eyes with a groan, but he couldn’t help but smile at the thought of getting to know Taako better. Maybe, if he was lucky, they would still be friends for next Candlenights, too.

Still, a wedding? Preposterous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be updates! The next two chapters are 100% complete; I'm going to post one per week and hopefully make myself finish the last two chapters with this looming deadline. Also the next two chapters are WAYYY longer, like, scarily long, I may have lost control, so if you're here like "oh five little ficlets about gifts!" I legally have to tell you that's what I went for, but then this thing went totally off the rails and we're sitting at around 27k words and I'm not even done.
> 
> Again, please give lilydzieart on tumblr your love, they've been SO understanding and cooperative with my inability to do things on time. See you next week, TAZians!


	2. A New Hat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako went after Johann and opened a new gift - the one he’d brought, Kravitz realized suddenly. Kravitz watched nervously as Taako unboxed his gift: a hilariously oversized wizard’s hat, with a pointed tip curling to the back. It was a dark blueish-purple color, and dotted with gaudy silver stars, including one dangling from a short string at the curled point of the hat.  
> Giggles broke out as Taako rotated it in front of him, a pensive, largely unreadable look on his face.  
> “It’s hideous,” Lup said, snickering. “Whoever got this is a genius.”  
> “Yeah,” Taako laughed, though his fingers were still running over the fabric of the hat. “Who the fuck got this?”

Taako had invited Kravitz to spend this year’s Candlenights celebration with his family in Bottlenose Cove, a beachside town a few hours’ drive from Neverwinter. For reasons Kravitz was fully aware of but stubbornly ignoring, he agreed. After all (he told himself unconvincingly), Taako had already had dinner with Kravitz’s parents, why shouldn’t he return the favor? So as requested, Kravitz (somewhat on impulse) bought a silly gift for the planned Dirty Santa game, and packed his bags to drive three hours down the coastal highway to Bottlenose Cove with Taako singing new, much more perverse lyrics to the Candlenights songs playing on the radio.

The expected three hours later, Taako unfolded from the car and stretched toward the sky in a very cat-like way. His spine cracked and Taako exhaled, his breath poofing out in a white cloud in the freezing air.

“Whew! Don’t make that kinda drive too often,” Taako commented as he twisted his arms back and forth. “Gotta hand it to you, though, you’re did a bang-up job on those icy roads.”

Kravitz stretched a little himself, and smiled at his friend. “Thank you. I would prefer to stay in the mortal realm a little longer.”

“What are you, some brooding interdimensional being?” Taako scoffed as he rolled his eyes, used to Kravitz’s dramatics. But he was smiling a little, so Kravitz counted it as a victory. Together they unloaded their bags from the trunk and drug them across the sandy yard (Kravitz generously took one of Taako’s bags when he pretended to swoon from labor) and on toward the massive house sitting before them. The house - more of a manor, Kravitz decided - was built directly into the cliffs ringing Bottlenose Cove, some distance away from the rest of the village. A tall silver boat was docked nearby, bobbing gently in the waves lapping at the shore. It was a beautiful scene, and one Kravitz would have liked to admire longer if it wasn’t so damn cold. Weren’t beaches supposed to be warm?

“So, just so you know,” Taako said as they approached, his shoulders slightly tense despite his casual tone, “there’s going to be a lot of people in here. And most of them are… well, they matter. To me. And of course they’re super lucky to be in that category, but because of that, they may want to, you know…”

“Ask me personal questions?” Kravitz guessed.

“Not so much ‘ask’ and more ‘assault’,” Taako corrected, offering Kravitz a quick, tight smile. “But you don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to, you can just tell them to fuck off. I deffo will. Oh, yeah, and this is a saying-‘fuck’-positive house, for sure.”

“Should I have received a briefing on the way here about who’s related to who and how?” Kravitz asked, eyeing the number of cars parked haphazardly around the sandy yard with trepidation.

“Shit,” Taako breathed, and laughed a little nervously. “Probably would have been a good idea. But yelling dirty lyrics to traditional Candlenights songs seemed a lot more important at the time, clearly.”

Kravitz chuckled. It had been hugely entertaining to hear Taako make up perverse lyrics to songs nearly everyone in Faerun knew from childhood. In fact, some of the new lyrics sounded so polished, Kravitz was _certain_ that Taako (and Lup, too) had made them up years prior and memorized them.

Sounds of raucous laughter reached them through the small side door, and Taako took a deep breath and looked up at Kravitz. “Ready to wow them?”

Kravitz cocked his head for a moment as he analyzed Taako’s unusual behavior that increased the closer they came to the door, gazing at Taako in silence for long enough that his friend started to fidget a little.

“What?” Taako said finally, slightly irritated. “I know it’s a gorgeous view, but this is-”

“There’s no need to be nervous, Taako,” Kravitz said truthfully, and words stopped coming out of Taako’s still-open mouth. “I won’t embarrass you in front of your family, I know how important they are to you. And I’m… I am really happy you invited me. Thank you for including me in your family gathering.”

Maybe it was the cold, but Kravitz was pretty sure he could see Taako blushing as they gazed at each other for a few breathless seconds. A faint sense of victory temporarily outweighed Kravitz’s own nervousness about the impending gathering, and he smiled at Taako as warmly as he could as the silence continued.

“Cool, great, sounds good, my dude,” Taako said quickly, looking away and breaking the spell. “Uh, right, good. So you ready?”

“Ready,” Kravitz said calmly, though his heart was beginning to pound with nerves. And with that, Taako flung open the door without bothering to knock, dropping his bags immediately to the floor and striking a dramatic pose.

“The star of the party has arrived!” Taako declared loudly. There was an answering cry of Taako’s name from a dozen people, and Kravitz nervously stepped inside.

The house was nice inside, too, but homey. Goofy pictures of kids lined on the walls, along with various shells and bits of rope probably foraged from the beach just outside. The entryway was short, with a couple large shelves for shoes already piled high. The room outside the entryway was incredibly large. To the left, a kitchen was only ceremoniously separated from the rest of the room by a wall with a huge opening at chest level. The right side of the room was a living area of truly remarkable size, with three couches, four armchairs, a fireplace, tall windows letting in what little winter sunlight there was, a ping-pong table off to the side, and a wide staircase at the back. Occupying the several pieces of living room furniture along with mismatched chairs likely stolen from an unseen dining room, Kravitz saw dozens of surprisingly diverse people staring curiously at him.

“Ooo, and who’s this with you, Taako?” someone in the crowd asked.

Taako gestured to Kravitz with a flourish. “This is my good friend and neighbor, Skellington McBoneFace!”

“Also known as Kravitz Reaper,” Kravitz said without missing a beat, and set down his bags long enough to get his shoes off to join the overflow on the shelves.

Several people all spoke at once, making it completely impossible for Kravitz to discern who was speaking, but the general sentiment seemed to be asking if Taako had brought food (he had, and Kravitz’s mouth watered just thinking about it), and if Taako was sure he and his new friend weren’t dating (they weren’t, and Kravitz intended to keep it that way; he wasn’t going to sacrifice a wonderful friendship for his own feelings).

Taako held up one hand imperiously, and slowly the group quieted. “No, we aren’t dating, no you can’t grill him about his whole life story, yes I have food-” there were several excited gasps, “- _and_ it will _only_ be given to people who are super nice to my four-hundred-percent _platonic_ friend.”

There was a little bit of muttering, and then the small crowd seemed to agree to Taako’s terms, as they went back to chattering amongst themselves. Before Kravitz could ask where to go with his bags, a short, stout man in a Hawaiian-print shirt and tan shorts separated himself from the living room mass and approached them, smiling.

“You turned up after all!” the man said to Taako, and clapped him on the arm.

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t doing anything better this weekend,” Taako replied with a shrug, inspecting his nails.

Kravitz, who happened to know that Taako hadn’t talked about anything else for weeks and had spent about a month planning what to wear and what to bake for this gathering, decided to remain silent like the good neighbor he was.

“Glad you’re here,” the middle-aged man said simply, but the way his eyes crinkled made Kravitz think maybe the man understood without Kravitz or Taako saying anything. The bearded man next turned to Kravitz and stuck out a hand. “Hey there, Carlton, glad to have you! I’m Merle and I’m hosting this crazy mess.”

“My name is Kravitz, and thank you for having me,” Kravitz said with some amusement, shaking Merle’s hand.

“Great!” Merle said, as Taako slipped into the living room crowd, “We’ve got lots of rooms in here, so you should be able to get one to yourself. A lot of the others share, of course, which helps everyone all fit in here for the multi-day madness that is Candlenights.”

“Yes, how many people are here, exactly?” Kravitz asked, watching Taako reappear with a smiling, burly man in tow.

Merle sighed, scratching his belly as he looked over the crowd. “Just had to ask that, didn’t ya? Who are you, the fire codes guy?” Kravitz opened his mouth to answer in the negative, but Merle just kept going. “Well, let’s see. It varies year to year, you know, with people doin’ different things for the holidays sometimes, but this time we’ve got just about everybody…” Merle started counting on his fingers, muttering names under his breath. “...Carey… Magnus… me ‘n’ Dav… Johann… Okay! Something like twenty people? Maybe a few more.”

Kravitz blinked a little too quickly. Coming from a family that consisted of two moms and one kind-of uncle, that was… a lot of people.

“We’re not all blood relatives, mind you,” Merle chuckled, apparently seeing the look on Kravitz’s face, “I’d say most of us aren’t, actually! Lotsa them are just friends who ended up stickin’ around.”

“Fascinating,” Kravitz managed. The large man following Taako - and who looked somewhat familiar - came up to Kravitz and stuck out a hand while grinning widely.

“Hey there! I’m Magnus Burnsides, it’s great to meet you!”

“Hello, I’m Kravitz,” he replied, shaking Magnus’s hand firmly. Looking down, he smiled a little. “I like your nails,” he added politely.

Magnus beamed, holding out his snowflake-decorated nails for the three other men to admire. “Thanks! Julia helped me do them up for Candlenights, I wanted to look extra festive.”

“Could have worn that elf costume from two years ago,” Merle suggested.

“ _No_ ,” Taako interrupted vehemently. “Never again, you crusty old man, you hear me? Never again!”

“Aw, where’s your sense of adventure?” Merle protested.

“You think fighting off angry ducks on ice skates is an adventure?” Magnus asked dubiously.

Seeing Kravitz’s face, Taako snickered and said, “To clarify, we were on ice skates, not the ducks.” Which, for Kravitz, clarified almost nothing.

“Oh but _that_ would have been an adventure!” Magnus laughed.

Kravitz smiled a little uncertainly, trying to decide if this was a prank or not. With Taako, and by extension his family and friends, it could really go either way.

“I was just trying to get us in the Candlenights spirit!” Merle said, holding his hands out to the sides in an innocent gesture. “I thought you both could use some _cheer_!”

“We almost died in an ice cave fighting off ducks!” Taako exclaimed, but he was clearly holding back laughter. “That’s not cheer, that’s a nightmare!”

“To be fair, we were in their space,” Magnus pointed out. “So it’s not their fault we-”

“Enough! Please, enough, I’m dying,” Taako said melodramatically. “I want to go to _my_ space, so come on Mags, chop chop!” Taako began sauntering off through the living room toward the hallway and staircase on the opposite side. Magnus good-naturedly shouldered Taako’s bags, even the one Kravitz had been carrying, and followed Taako around the edge of the room.

“Where should I-” Kravitz began, but Merle jerked a thumb in the same direction before he could finish.

“Just follow them. They’ll get you set up in a guest room, no problem. And, ah, make yourself at home! Pan knows everyone else has,” he grumbled, and glared at a person standing on a coffee table. With that, Merle wandered back over to the group and promptly was swallowed by the crowd. Kravitz picked up his bags quickly and walked in his socked feet after Taako and Magnus, who were just reaching the stairs at the back of this immense room. Suddenly, his suitcase was wrested from his hands, and a startled Kravitz turned to see Lup and Barry grinning at him.

“Skele-boy!” Lup said happily, clapping him on the back with her free hand, “Good to see you again! How was the trip up here?”

“It was pleasant!” Kravitz answered truthfully, relieved to know a total of three people here rather than one. “I’ve been completely introduced to the Tostaada Dirty Candlenights album.”

“Oh, it’s masterful, isn’t it?” Lup laughed.

“It leaves an impression, for sure,” Barry added dryly, sharing an amused smile with Kravitz.

The three of them found an empty guest room on the third floor, and Kravitz’s extra bag and suitcase were tossed on the bed as quickly as possible before Kravitz was dragged back down two flights of stairs into the massive living room full of people.

The crowd let out a little cheer when they all reappeared, and Kravitz was absorbed into the gathering with surprising ease. In the span of three hours, Kravitz was introduced to every single person there, although he was certain he would forget all of their names before dinner.

Lucretia, a young dark-skinned woman with short white hair, wanted to know Kravitz’s life story and seemed to be taking notes until Julia, a woman with one of the sweetest smiles Kravitz had ever seen, gave her a sharp nudge and reminded her to live in the moment.

Purple-haired Ren brought Kravitz a plate with a sample of every finger food the repurposed ping-pong table had to offer, and spoke of wanting to be a chef like Taako.

Magnus and Killian, a tall and muscular woman with dark hair, held a short flexing and lifting contest trying to outdo each other, and Avi tried (unsuccessfully) to get Kravitz to join in.

Angus was eleven years old and shockingly well-spoken, and though he did claim to be the ‘World’s Greatest Boy Detective’, he sounded rather nonchalant when saying so, like it was an ordinary job title.

The red-haired Davenport was somewhat quiet, but offered Kravitz a glass of wine that he gratefully accepted.

A woman with bright blue, spiky hair named Carey and her much younger accomplice Mookie snuck up on Kravitz and startled him, but then gave him a plate with a brownie on it, so he thought maybe it was in good fun.

Hecuba, with brown hair streaked with silver, and her rather shy boyfriend Glymeth were one of the calmer pairs, and Kravitz had a nice time critiquing the contents of a nearby bookshelf with them along with a young red-cheeked woman with a prosthetic arm and leg who introduced herself as Noelle.

Johann was as dour as anyone Kravtiz had ever met, but he said he was an amazing violinist and a composer, and he and Kravitz talked about music for some forty minutes before they were interrupted by a small woman named Hurley asking Kravitz to see if she was as tall as her slender girlfriend Sloane when standing on the arm of the couch (she wasn’t).

Roswell, with a little pet bird perched on one of their broad shoulders, wanted to know if Kravitz had any pets, and Mavis, a young teenager with glasses, asked Kravitz who his favorite author was.

It was a whirlwind of social activity, and constantly loud, but the steady flow of kind smiles on every person in the room helped Kravitz to feel less overwhelmed.

Just when Kravitz was starting to get hungry for a more substantial meal than the snacks provided, someone boomed “ATTENTION!”, and the room fell silent relatively quickly. Kravitz turned to see Magnus standing next to the half-wall of the kitchen, where Davenport was standing on the open half of the wall with his spine ramrod-straight.

“Thank you, Magnus,” Davenport said politely in the quiet room.

“My pleasure, Cap’nport,” Magnus replied cheerfully, and walked away to stand next to the woman with the kind smile (what was it, Juliet?).

“Thank you all for coming to The Annual Starblaster Family Candlenights Extravaganza,” Davenport began, and Kravitz briefly wondered what a ‘starblaster’ was, or if it was actually someone’s surname. “I’m pleased to welcome all of you here, whether it’s your fiftieth year with this family or your first.”

“Feels like a hundred and fifty!” Taako yelled from somewhere and got a few agreeing whoops and chuckles in reply. Actually, where was Kravitz’s favorite neighbor? Kravitz hadn’t seen him or Lup for at least an hour, now that he thought about it.

Davenport continued unbothered by the interruption. “For the next few days, I hope everyone has a wonderful time. Tonight’s dinner was made by Taako, Lup, and Ren, and will be a self-serve line starting on this side of the kitchen and moving toward the dining room. Please wait for everyone to go through once before getting seconds.”

“Oh man, that reminds me,” Barry excitedly whispered to Kravitz, “Lup told me she and Taako are making their aunt’s special occasion turkey recipe tomorrow, it’ll blow your mind!”

“One last reminder,” Davenport raised his voice over the group murmuring excitedly, “Please keep the noise down after eleven o’clock so your neighbors can sleep. There are children who need their rest for tomorrow morning. And Happy Candlenights!” Davenport finished, raising his wine glass in the air.

“Happy Candlenights!” most of the group shouted in response, and almost all of the adults took a drink from their glasses. Kravitz followed, just a little bit behind the others, and then fell into an untidy line with the rest of the group slowly filing into the kitchen.

“It’s not quite the same,” Taako said, unexpectedly right beside Kravitz, who jumped a little. Taako smirked. “Without all the fire, I mean. It’s almost like it’s missing something.”

“I don’t think my incompetence in the kitchen will be sorely missed,” Kravitz replied dryly, and Taako smiled.

“Maybe not. Guess you’ll just have to keep coming back here for Candlenights, to enjoy my delicious, non-arsonist home cooking.” There was a question in there somewhere, and after a second of contemplation, Kravitz returned Taako’s smile.

“Well, no one’s run me off yet. But I suppose they haven’t seen me in a kitchen, either.”

“And as long as I have anything to say about it, they never will!” Taako added, and then snuck in front of Kravitz to grab a plate and go through the line.

Now _this_ was Taako outdoing himself, Kravitz thought. He tried to give himself a serving of every dish, but he couldn’t resist taking an extra bit of cranberry sauce, or a second latka, or another slice of roasted chicken, or just a little bit more of the red beans and rice- And before he knew it, Kravitz’s plate was piled high with food, and he was absolutely certain he’d never be able to finish it.

He scored a seat next to Taako at the long dining room table, noticing that someone had been nice enough to bring back all the chairs that had been stolen for use in the living room. Roswell and Noelle sat across from them, and Carey was on Kravitz’s left. Everything Kravitz ate tasted like the best thing he’d ever had, and when Taako asked after his favorite, Kravitz couldn’t even _begin_ to formulate an answer. If Kravitz had thought Taako had done a good job last year, in his post-disaster kitchen with anything he could scrounge up, this was four thousand times better than that. Kravitz was in food heaven.

“I’m in food heaven,” Kravitz said candidly with a sigh, looking longingly at a plate still holding food he wanted to eat, but couldn’t put in his body without exploding, probably.

Roswell offered a little piece of some fruit to their pet bird, and grinned at Kravitz. “You’d think that feeling would go away after enough years eating the food these three cook, but it really is this wonderful every time.”

“Oh, stop it,” Taako said, leaning on one arm as he smiled at Roswell, clearly eating up the praise. “You know it’s a passion.”

“It really is good,” Noelle added enthusiastically, toasting Taako with her fork full of mashed potatoes. Through her mouthful she added, “Fhis iss delicioush!” She swallowed, and then quickly added, “Sorry, y’all, I didn’t mean to be rude. Just makin’ a point.”

“Mmm, if you say so.” Taako basked in the well-deserved compliments, and Kravitz grinned even as he felt like he’d swallowed a bowling ball.

“This food is so good, I would steal the Hope diamond to buy it!” Carey suggested with a grin.

“This food is so good, I would jump off a cliff after it!” Magnus said from down the table, jumping in on the fun.

“This food is so good, I’d buy it flowers and wine!” Avi contributed, and from there, the whole table started doing it.

“This food is so good, I’d write it a four-movement symphony,” Johann said quietly.

“This food is so good, I’d give up one of our dogs for it!” Julia claimed, to which Magnus gasped out “No! Traitor!” and was only given an unrepentant grin in response.

“This food is so good, I’d live on the moon,” Lucretia said.

“This food is so good, I’d reanimate it from the dead!” Barry said enthusiastically. Too enthusiastically?

“This food is so good, I’d eat it!” Mookie yelled at full volume.

“This food is so good, I’d accept it instead of prize money!” said Hurley, and Kravitz wondered what on Earth she did to win prize money.

“This food is so good, I’d host Candlenights every year for these idiots!” Merle shouted, which was greeted with mixed booing and laughter.

“This food is so good, I’d risk burning down my apartment building just to get my hot neighbor to cook it for me,” Kravitz offered cheekily, maybe influenced by the amount of wine he’d already imbibed tonight. Taako choked a little on his own drink, before laughing so uproariously, he nearly fell out of his chair, sending the rest of the table into equal straits of laughter.

“This food is so good, I’d kill myself laughing about it,” Lup giggled, pointing at Taako, and then Taako really did flop dramatically out of his chair onto the floor. At that, Killian actually snorted water out of her nose, sending Carey into fits of uncontrollable giggles that would continue the rest of the evening, Magnus started crying with laughter, and even Johann was grinning down at his plate. Kravitz really wondered if his sides would be sore the next morning from the waves of laughter shaking his form.

It was a good night.

* * *

 

The next day was Candlenights proper, and Mookie, Magnus, Sloane, and Carey went running around the house yelling “IT’S CANDLENIGHTS!” and waking everyone up at nine in the morning. The manor’s occupants filed downstairs in various states of awakeness, and Kravitz had to admit he felt like the living dead. He needed sleep, dammit. Still, someone had the coffee machine constantly going, and after two cups of that magical concoction, Kravitz felt much more like a human being. Most everyone was in their pajamas and apparently didn’t care about it, so no one seemed to notice that Kravitz had made a weak attempt at getting dressed but had ended up in wrinkled dress pants and an oversized gold and green sweater with an old coffee stain on the front.

Something thumped into Kravitz’s back as he bit into an apple, and he turned to see a very sleepy Taako draped over the back of his armchair. Taako’s arms curled their way around Kravitz’s middle, and Kravitz felt his heart skip a beat.

“Good morning, Taako,” Kravitz said with a smile.

“Tired,” Taako grunted, burying his face into Kravitz’s side. His next words were muffled, but Kravitz interpreted them as, “You’re warm.”

“I try,” Kravitz replied with an amused glance at Barry, who was sporting slightly askew glasses and whose hair was sticking in a hundred different directions. Barry still gave Kravitz a sleepy thumbs-up, and took a long drink from the mug clutched in his hands.

The morning passed quickly as the group truly woke up (even Taako, whose hands were pried off Kravitz by a fondly exasperated Davenport and wrapped around a cup of coffee instead), and everyone ended up in the living room again, many of them still in pajamas or wearing Candlenights sweaters and sweatpants. They ate a late lunch in there instead of the dining room, and still hardly made a dent in the plentiful leftovers from last night’s dinner. When the plates were in the dishwasher and everyone was flopped back on the various chairs and couches in the living room, Davenport asked everyone to arrange the chairs in a circle in the and put their Dirty Santa gifts in the center of the room. Honestly, Kravitz had almost forgotten about the game. He’d been having more fun than he’d expected from a family gathering - especially one with nearly twenty people Kravitz had never met.

Kravitz retrieved his large wrapped box from his bedroom, grinning at Killian and Carey who met him in the hallway with their own oddly-shaped packages. They all made their way downstairs and added the gifts to the steadily growing pile in the center of the living room. Kravitz sat in a chair stolen from the dining room, next to Johann and Sloane. He gave Taako a friendly wave from across the room, and Taako replied with a chill peace sign and a small smile.

“So are you two, like, an item?” Johann asked Kravitz bluntly, though quietly.

Kravitz shook his head. “No, no; just neighbors. Well, good friends now, I think.”

“But I heard that he’s cooked for you,” Johann said.

“Yes,” Kravitz affirmed with a smile, “He’s a very-”

“Multiple times.” Johann was looking at Kravitz intently, like this was supposed to mean something.

Kravitz shrugged, glancing back at Taako, who was now engaged in conversation with Ren. “It’s kind of how we met, him cooking for me. I suppose it’s something of an accidental tradition.”

“Hmm.” Johann seemed to be gazing somberly into the brightly wrapped presents occupying the center of the room. After a few seconds, he said even more sadly than usual, “Sometimes the people you like - or even love - don’t understand the way you express your feelings. Your romantic interest.” Kravitz remained silent. This sounded very personal, and he wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

In a moment, Johann continued, “I play music for lots of people. I’m a great performer. But…” he sighed gustily, and looked down. “I don’t write music for just anyone, you know. I write for my family and friends sometimes. And I write for him. But I don’t think he knows what I mean.”

“...Who?” Kravitz asked gently.

With Kravitz’s interruption of his thoughts, Johann seemed to shake himself out of his brief extra-melancholy episode. “Oh. It’s… it’s no one. Just, you know, think about what it means, I guess. When Taako cooks for you.”

Kravitz’s eyes unintentionally locked on Taako. What it meant? He thought it was a gesture of friendship, of neighborly care. Did it mean something else? Could it mean anything else? Did Kravitz even _want_ it to mean anything else?

Taako’s eyes met Kravitz’s, and he immediately gave Kravitz a little cocky smirk.

 _Yes_ , Kravitz realized, something heavy as dread but with more fluttering settling deep in his stomach, _I do want it to mean something else_.

“Alright, listen up, you punks!” Merle said, standing on top of the coffee table and still only barely visible behind the mountain of gifts. “The rules are the usuals! One gift per person, you can open a gift on your turn or steal someone else’s. Three steals, the gift is locked. No stealing the same item back from the person who stole it from you. Agnes here has numbers for you to draw, we’ll start with one and go to twenty-whatever. Remember, no excessive use of force! Dav and I are refereeing and if you play too rough you’re out of the game, no presents.”

Excessive force? With some alarm, Kravitz looked around the circle to see if anyone else was laughing at this… joke? But mostly he saw determination on everyone’s faces: Magnus cracked his knuckles with an anticipatory smile, Lucretia’s dark eyes seemed to issue a challenge, and Hurley’s tiny smirk promised ruin. Kravitz looked back at the pile of gifts with wide eyes, wondering if he’d be risking his life over some dumb gag gift.

But then Angus appeared in front of Kravitz, his little cap full of slips of paper. He smiled at Kravitz, and Kravitz smiled uncertainly back as he drew a number.

“Don’t worry, sir,” Angus said politely, “They’ll go easy on you, since it’s your first time. And it’s all in good fun.”

“Thank you, Angus,” Kravitz replied, not really reassured but grateful for the attempt anyway. He unfolded his paper and saw the number 18 written on it. Kravitz did a brief headcount and discovered he would be near the end of the round, as there were twenty-three people total.

Angus sat back down, and Merle called for number 1 to open a gift. Mavis stood up and adjusted her glasses with intense focus, before striding to the middle of the circle and picking up a small, circular package. She unwrapped it neatly and held up her prize for everyone to admire.

“A wooden frisbee, with the word ‘DUCK!’ written on it,” Mavis announced, and a few people groaned.

“Flip it over!” Magnus said, immediately giving away whose gift it was. Although judging by some of the looks going his way, a lot of the guests already knew.

“Oh,” Mavis said, and laughed a little. “There’s a picture of a duck on this side. It’s cute.” Magnus nodded smugly, keeping the expression even when Taako leaned over and said something that made Magnus swat him on the arm.

“Next?” Davenport asked the group at large.

“I’m actually next,” Magnus said, holding up his slip of paper. He unwrapped a new gift as well, and so did Mookie after him, and so on. Then the frisbee was stolen by Lucretia, and so Mavis stole the book _101 Things In The Ocean That Want To Kill You_ from Ren, and so Ren stole a crystal necklace from Sloane, and then things got a little heated for the first time when Sloane and Magnus faced off for a large metal tankard with “Go Fast, Eat Grass” written on it with a picture of a goat.

Eventually the dispute was settled, more gifts were opened, and Johann went twelfth (almost halfway done), opening a gift bag to reveal what seemed to be a surprisingly nice pair of knit gloves. Then someone snickered, and upon further inspection, the pattern on the gloves was interlocking marijuana leaves, with “420” stitched into each palm.

Taako went after Johann and opened a new gift - the one he’d brought, Kravitz realized suddenly. Kravitz watched nervously as Taako unboxed his gift: a hilariously oversized wizard’s hat, with a pointed tip curling to the back. It was a dark blueish-purple color, and dotted with gaudy silver stars, including one dangling from a short string at the curled point of the hat.

Giggles broke out as Taako rotated it in front of him, a pensive, largely unreadable look on his face.

“It’s hideous,” Lup said, snickering. “Whoever got this is a genius.”

“Yeah,” Taako laughed, though his fingers were still running over the fabric of the hat. “Who the fuck got this?”

Kravitz wasn’t sure if he should answer. But everyone else so far had freely come forward about whose gift was whose… “I brought it,” Kravitz said after a beat. “It was too eye-catching not to get.”

“It’s got a nice color scheme,” Lup admitted, and then started laughing again. “But the _size_ of that thing, Krav, eye-catching isn’t the half of it-”

Taako jammed it on his head. He raised one eyebrow defiantly, as if daring anyone in the room to tell him he looked silly. And he did, in fact, look silly. He was in fuzzy pink pajama pants and an old IPRE T-shirt, his hair was as unkempt as Kravitz had ever seen it, and to top it off he had an enormous wizard’s hat on his head now.

“You look _ridiculous_ ,” Lup cackled, breaking the hush over the room, and with that a few more people laughed, but never unkindly.

“I think he could work it!” Magnus said encouragingly.

“But it’s just too big for any reasonable person,” Barry pointed out with a grin.

“Do I look like a reasonable person to you?” Taako asked, striking a pose that made him look even funnier. Most people were muffling (or failing to muffle) giggles at this point.

“Well, bad news, no one’s going to steal it from you,” Lup said with a sympathetic pat to his shoulder.

Taako sneered. “I’d like to see anyone _try_ to take this hat away from me! It’s my statement piece now! I can _work_ this!”

“Sure you can,” Lup snickered, and Taako grumbled back incoherently as Hecuba produced a number 14 and withdrew another package from the pile. Davenport went sixteenth and stole a woven belt/sash thing from his husband Merle, prompting another round of increasingly rough stealing and negotiating, unlike any game of Dirty Santa Kravitz had ever attended. Merle stole the weed gloves from Johann, so Johann stole a box of candy from Noelle, so Noelle stole a lava lamp from Roswell, and then Roswell and Lup tussled briefly for Lup’s gift, a shiny sheriff’s badge that made siren noises when pressed. Lup lost after just half a minute (and Roswell’s bird screeched in victory, making everyone wince), and so she stole a monocle from Glymeth, who took mercy on the group and just opened another gift.

Kravitz went eighteenth and withdrew a long red umbrella with a curved handle, though it was taken from him three rounds later when Lup stole it from him after she’d been stolen from by Davenport, who’d been stolen from by Sloane, who’d been stolen from by Julia, who’d been stolen from by Barry.

The point was, he had to pick a new gift. Kravitz looked around the circle speculatively, but ultimately decided just to open another gift. He picked one of the smallest packages, a somewhat heavy package from its size, and opened it to reveal-

“A rock?” Kravitz laughed, holding it up. It seemed to be a completely ordinary stone, maybe from the beach right outside. It was smooth, surprisingly fun to roll in his hands, but just a rock nonetheless.

“Who just brought a _rock_?” Taako laughed. No one seemed inclined to answer, so after a little friendly finger pointing at the people who hadn’t revealed what they had brought, Avi opened one of the two remaining gifts. Carey went last, but she chose to steal from Angus, and a flurry of stealing and wrestling and laughter went around the room once again, until a playfully-bitter Ren stood up and opened the last gift. Mavis, as the first player, had an opportunity to start the stealing all over again, but she’d ended up with a book and she was satisfied. A little bit of free trading happened around the room - Kravitz got an offer to trade his rock, but it was fun to play with and the offer was just a box of candy, so he declined - and then everyone had their odd, silly presents.

“Do people give each other serious gifts, too?” Kravitz asked Lup on the side of the room, as everyone admired each other’s final gifts.

“Oh, yeah, for sure,” Lup agreed. “But that’s really just for your very closest friends or family. This is the extended group, so we all care about each other - a lot - but we’re not about to give personalized gifts to every other person here.”

“So who do _you_ give gifts to, might I ask?” said Kravitz.

Lup smiled cryptically. “You’ll find out later.”

He would? Kravitz was about to ask for more information, but then Davenport announced that dinner would be in three hours, and that everyone was encouraged to look as fancy as they wanted, but it wasn’t a requirement. Kravitz had fortunately been forewarned about this family tradition, and had brought a nice suit with him. Still, he didn’t need three hours to change into it. Lup disappeared from his side with a last wink, and Kravitz was wondering how to fill the time, when Johann approached him, his face as downtrodden as ever.

“Hey man,” Johann said.

“Hello,” Kravitz replied politely. “Are you planning to dress up for dinner?”

“Yeah, later,” Johann said dismissively. “I was actually wondering… You said you play piano?”

“Yes, passably,” Kravitz agreed, his interest already piqued. “Why do you ask?”

Johann brushed his hair out of his face and smiled a little. “Great. Would you want to, you know, have a little jam session down in the music room for a bit? We can stop in time for dinner, I guess.”

Kravitz had already talked with Johann about music several times in the past two days, but this was his first chance to hear the violinist play, and he was enthusiastically agreeing in seconds. Taako watched the two of them leave the room, and Kravitz offered an excited wave to his friend before following Johann over to the stairs and down into the basement level of the house.

The basement was pleasantly warm, a nice surprise for a subterranean floor in winter, and wasn’t exactly what Kravitz had been picturing. He’d expected bare walls and storage boxes, but this floor looked just as nicely decorated and inhabited as the other floors of the manor. Johann led him through the game room at the bottom of the stairs and into a long hallway, where they entered a double-doored room on the left. A well-made piano took up a good portion of the room, but all kinds of labeled instrument cases joined it, enough for a small symphony. Johann picked up a violin case and prepared his instrument, rosining the bow while Kravitz settled in at the piano and ran a few scales. He was somewhat out of practice, but after a few bars of his childhood favorite “Für Elise” he felt confident enough to give Johann a nod. Johann already had a music stand set to his height, and offered a thick book of duets to Kravitz.

“Do you know any of these already?” Johann asked. Kravitz looked through the table of contents, nodding at a few, and then let out a low whistle when he saw Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 9, also called "Kreutzer”.

“This was my graduation recital piece,” he told Johann, flipping to the page where it started. “It was one of the angrier, or at least more intense pieces, that I could choose from, and I really felt it when I was preparing to graduate.”

“I’ve played it before,” Johann said, nodding in recognition. “Let’s take it a little under-tempo to start with, and then just… see where we end up, I guess.”

“Sounds good.” Kravitz nodded, and then Johann counted them off at a reasonable pace. And they played.

Johann really was one of the most amazing violinists Kravitz had ever heard, maybe _the_ most amazing violinist. He drew notes out of the violin like he was coaxing them, then like he was dancing with them, his fingers sliding up and down the neck of the instrument like he was caressing a lover. His bow dipped and rose hypnotizingly over the strings, making the violin sing with a voice clearer than Kravitz had ever heard before. Kravitz only noticed he had failed to come in when he reached up to wipe a tear from his eye.

“I’m sorry,” Kravitz said quickly when Johann lowered his violin. “It’s- You play beautifully.”

“Thanks,” Johann said casually, apparently unaffected by the tears. Maybe this was a normal reaction. Actually, it had to be; Kravitz couldn’t imagine anyone hearing something so beautiful and moving without crying.

Regaining his composure, Kravitz stretched his fingers and wiped his eyes one last time. “Right. Shall we move on to _presto_ in measure eighteen?”

And so they played. Kravitz let himself get lost in the music he made with Johann, letting small mistakes slide and instead just enjoying the harmony between the two of them and their instruments. Two hours later, Johann’s phone alarm sounded, interrupting Johann’s absolutely breathtaking rendition of the violin solo from Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade.”

“Oh, I guess we should go get ready,” Johann said, turning off the alarm with a tap. He started packing up his violin and Kravitz closed the lid of the piano with a contented sigh.

“I had a lot of fun,” Kravitz said sincerely. “Perhaps we can do this again sometime?”

“I think that’d be fun,” Johann said with a medium-sized smile (a true accomplishment). “You’re pretty good for someone who would rather be conducting.”

“I had to be,” Kravitz snorted. “Performance was an aspect of my degree. But speaking of conducting, Taako talked me into applying for a guest spot with one of Neverwinter’s community orchestras. Would you like to exchange numbers? If I get the spot, I think you might enjoy the selections I’ve made.”

“If it’s got a pretty good violin section I’ll go,” Johann said, and then gave a sort-of half-chuckle. They added each other into their phone contacts, and then separated. Kravitz had a spring in his step all the way through changing and checking his har, humming “Scheherazade” under his breath. At ten minutes to seven, Kravitz descended the stairs to the living room in a black suit with a deep burgundy dress shirt, his dreads swept back and decorated with more gold beads than usual. Gold skull cufflinks (something he’d bought for himself after Taako’s nicknames stuck) graced his wrists, and his tie pin winked out from under his suit jacket.

“Damn, Kravitz,” Julia said when he entered the half-full living room. “You look like a really sexy vampire.”

“All vampires are sexy, love,” Magnus replied with a laugh, throwing an arm around her. She looked beautiful, too and Kravitz told her so, dressed in a light blue, flowing gown with off-the-shoulder sleeves and her earrings flashing in the light. Magnus was wearing a suit - or rather, most of a suit. He had a white button-up on with a light blue bowtie (matching Julia’s dress - were they a couple?) but his shirt and jacket had no sleeves. The cloth ended in jagged lines at his shoulders, leaving his muscular arms bare to the world.

Kravitz decided not to comment on it. He instead bid the two of them farewell, and moved over to Killian and Carey, who were also somewhat matching in color scheme, and they were happy to confirm that Magnus and Julia were married, and the two of them were actually dating, too. Their conversation was interrupted a few minutes later by a loud wolf whistle from the steps area, and Kravitz turned to look - and his heart stopped.

It was Taako. And Taako was _beautiful_. And, impossibly, Taako was wearing the huge, ridiculous wizard’s hat. Only… it didn’t look quite so ridiculous anymore.

A sleek plum-colored dress hugged most of Taako’s body, with a dainty lace of the same color gracing Taako’s throat and upper chest as well as his arms. His fingers were dripping with gems, a necklace sparkled at his throat, and his jeweled ear piercings framed his face with multicolored light. A black corset emphasized his waist, and underneath it the skirt of the dress loosened to flow around his legs like water. A tall slit in one side forced Kravitz to inhale, restarting his heart in the process. Most surprisingly, the wizard’s hat, once so silly, was now enhanced by the deep purple of the dress and the silver gems decorating Taako’s person, so that Taako himself looked like a swirling purple galaxy speckled with silver light, and to say Kravitz was enamored would be an understatement.

“Wow,” Killian said from beside Kravitz, “He looks good every year, but he’s really pulled out all the stops this time.”

“And I’m pretty sure that’s one of Sloane’s dresses,” Carey added. “So he must have really wanted to wear that hat with something. Probably had to promise he’d make her some cherry tarts or something in return.”

“Heh,” Killian chuckled, “Lup’s gonna flip when she sees how good he made that stupid hat look. Great gift by the way, Kravitz, it’s hilarious.”

“Yes, great,” Kravitz agreed somewhat absently. He couldn’t take his eyes off Taako. Taako’s eyes seemed to glow under the broad brim of the wizard hat, and his smile flashed brighter than any gem on his person.

Eventually Killian took pity on Kravitz and dragged him into the dining room. This time Kravitz was next to Killian on his right, _very_ fancy lad Angus on his left, and… Taako sat across from him.

“Hi,” Kravitz said stupidly.

“Oh hey, Dry Bones,” Taako said casually, brushing a nonexistent tendril of his perfectly styled hair out of is face, “You clean up nice.”

Killian nudged him a little when Kravitz took too long staring.

“Uh, you too,” Kravitz managed.

“The hat looks amazing, against all odds,” Hurley said, grinning at Taako as she and Sloane sat down next to him.

“I told you I could work it,” Taako smirked. Kravitz tried to think of a good flirty response to that, but by the time he came up with a somewhat weak, “You could work anything,” it was too late. Davenport and Lucretia, both dressed to the nines as well, came out of the kitchen with carts bearing platters of food. They quickly served everyone, and Kravitz was pleased to find yet another delicious meal in front of him, but he could barely focus on it. He couldn’t really remember what it was. At some point it was going to get creepy, but he just couldn’t seem to look away from Taako for any substantial length of time. Kravitz almost felt like he’d been magically charmed or something.

“Sir, your soup is about to drip,” Angus said helpfully, and Kravitz managed to put his spoon back over his bowl in time to avoid disaster.

“Thank you, Angus. And you don’t have to call me ‘sir’,” Kravitz reminded him gently.

“It’s just habit, s- Mr. Reaper. I want to make sure everyone I meet feels respected,” Angus said with conviction.

“Then how should I best address you, sir?” Kravitz replied, smiling a little.

Angus laughed, adjusting his glasses as he smiled at Kravitz. “I think Angus will do just fine, Mr. Reaper.”

“Well if you call me Mr. Reaper, it seems I should call you Mr. McDonald,” Kravitz pointed out. “You’re just as deserving of respect as I am, however you see fit to express it.”

Angus _beamed_. “Thank you very much, s- Mi- Mister Kravitz! Not a lot of adults want to take someone as young as me very seriously, even when I’m doing my job.”

“Mister Angus, I wouldn’t dream of treating you otherwise,” Kravitz said gravely, and then smiled back. “If it’s not classified, what was your most exciting case?”

“Ooooo, yeah, detective stories!” Lup said, leaning forward from a few seats down the table. “Tell us a good one, Ango!”

And so Angus launched into a thrilling narrative about a serial killer on a train, and though Kravitz would have taken most other tales like this with skepticism, he couldn’t help but believe every word Angus said. He wove an intricate tale of false identities and unlikely creatures and ultimately, danger.

“And so I jumped off the train!” Angus concluded, amidst a few gasps from a rapt audience. “I actually lost my two central incisors from the leap, but fortunately I got myself and my teeth to a dentist in time to correct the damage with no complications.”

“Fuck, Ango,” Taako whistled, “That’s quite the adventure!”

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Julia added, and got lots of nods in agreement.

“And the city of Rockport?” Noelle asked.

“Safe,” Angus said, before adding with a humble smile, “Before I jumped, I tied a crowbar to the caboose’s rear railing, and threw the crowbar into the tracks. It caught and slowed down the train enough for the officials to change the tracks and let the train run itself into a dead end instead of the station.”

Everyone had questions for Angus, who was polite enough to try to downplay his significant role in saving hundreds of lives.

“He’s a great kid,” Kravitz said to Taako as they were all carrying their plates back to the kitchen.

“Oh, that little dude?” Taako said, glancing through the half-wall of the kitchen to where Angus was seated with Mavis, both of them intently discussing something as Mookie started to nod off between them.

“Yeah,” Taako shrugged, looking down at his nails. “He’s alright.”

Kravitz smiled. He knew Taako well enough to know he cared a lot more than he would say about ‘that little dude’.

The evening wound down after that, Candlenights music playing in the background while the group played lazy games of dreidel for chocolate coins none of them could possibly eat tonight. The three children were all asleep on one of the couches in a little pile. Some of the couples were also starting to peel off, either to doze on the couches nearby under heavy blankets, or just giving up entirely and leaving to go to bed. Kravitz was sitting hunched on the floor, elbow digging into his thigh as he leaned heavily on his hand.

“Gimmel,” Kravitz announced with a grin as the dreidel stopped spinning, and accordingly he scooped all the chocolate coins from the center into his own pile.

“Fuck off,” Taako said without any heat. He was laying stomach-down on the floor across from Kravitz, his hat tipped back precariously far so he could see the gameplay properly.

“You’re enjoying this too much,” Avi said with a yawn from Kravitz’s right.

Kravitz shrugged easily as he and the other three players each put one piece into the center again. “I’ve always liked games of chance or risk. They’re exciting.”

On Kravitz’s left, Johann tossed in another coin and spun the dreidel next, getting a pretty good spin on it for someone lying down.

“Shin,” Johann sighed in his usual melancholy way. He flicked another candy into the center and passed the dreidel to Taako.

“So I heard some pretty good music from the basement earlier today,” Taako said as he put in a coin and spun. “I knew Johann was a baller musician, but how long have you been playing piano, Bones? Oh sweet, Hay.” Taako took half of the pot, and passed the dreidel to Avi.

“I’ve been playing piano for most of my life,” Kravitz answered as Avi spun. “It was just a hobby until I went to get my degree in conducting. Then there was a performance aspect, and I had to be better than a hobbyist.”

“Aw dunk, it’s Nun,” Avi reported, and passed the top to Kravitz without doing anything besides pouting.

“Well you and Johann make a pret-ty good duet, I gotta say,” Taako said, wiggling his eyebrows a little suggestively. But was it Kravitz’s imagination, or did Taako’s eyes seem a little cold…?

Kravitz looked at Taako with a confused frown as the dreidel whirled. “Thanks? But why did you-”

“If it was unclear before, I have no romantic interest in you, Kravitz,” Johann interrupted somberly.

“Oh, same,” Kravitz replied unthinkingly. Realizing how that could have sounded, he then hurriedly backtracked a little, “Not that you aren’t a wonderful person! You’re a very talented musician and seem like a nice guy-”

“I can’t fucking believe this,” Johann said flatly, and for a moment Kravitz was sincerely worried he’d offended him, but then the violinist pointed to the dreidel.

“Gimmel again.” Kravitz noted with pleased surprise, and swept all the coins in the pot into his growing hoard of chocolate.

“Does anyone know how to cheat at dreidel?” Avi asked the group despairingly, and Taako snorted, smiling a little more widely than usual.

“ _If_ I knew how, I wouldn’t tell any of you,” he replied, gesturing lazily with one of his remaining coins.

“Taako, what about you? Have you been… like, dating anyone recently?” Johann asked as he spun again.

Taako’s smile shrank back into normalcy as he gave Johann a big, over-the-top wink. “Why do you want to know, big guy?”

“No,” Johann said immediately, like he was startled into saying it. “Sorry, not like- I didn’t mean it like that. You brought it up, is all, I thought... maybe there was someone you were interested in. And it’s Hay for me,” he added, taking half of the few coins in the newly-replenished pot.

Taako spun the dreidel with a flick of his dexterous fingers and shrugged, not looking up from the top. “I haven’t really been into dating much the past few months. Lots of work, I suppose. But…” Taako wrinkled his nose at the dreidel’s result and passed it to Avi without doing anything, “I guess... there is a guy I’m interested in. Dunno if he feels the same or not.”

“Yo, that sounds kinda rough,” Avi said sympathetically, spinning for his turn.

“The only thing worse than not knowing, is knowing that you don’t stand a chance,” Johann commented glumly. He looked as downtrodden as he had when talking to Kravitz about the man who didn’t understand Johann’s expression of love. _Oh_ , Kravitz thought with sudden horror, _is it the same guy?_

“Hmm, sucks,” Taako said dismissively, but Avi gave a little surprised laugh and the others looked at him curiously.

“Oh, sorry, it’s not funny,” Avi said quickly. “It’s just… who wouldn’t like _you_ , Johann? You’re amazing! You have the funniest sense of humor, and you write such cool tunes, and you love animals so much - dude, you wrote a song for the jellyfish at the aquarium and _you_ cried when you played it.”

“To be fair, I was told you cried, too,” Taako interjected with amusement.

“Well yeah,” Avi agreed shamelessly, “Johann’s music could make the coldest mountains weep.”

The group went really quiet at that, and really, it didn’t take Kravitz long to put it together. Johann’s slightly-open mouth as he stared at Avi. The unusually poetic way Avi talked about Johann’s music. Honestly, it seemed rather obvious now that he knew it was there: Romance. Barely blossoming romance, in the blush in Avi’s cheeks, and in the stars in Johann’s eyes, as they stared at each other unblinkingly.

Kravitz also belatedly realized they were the last four awake, though he hadn’t noticed the others leaving. Someone had mercifully dragged the kids off to bed, and the other adults were nowhere to be seen. And with Avi and Johann still looking at each other like _that_...

“Well, I’m cashing out!” Kravitz announced suddenly, shoving his heaps of gold into the center of their gathering. “Taako, would you like to-”

“Yep I’m outie. But I’m deffo taking these,” Taako said, grabbing fistfuls of chocolate coins (that were definitely not all his) and getting to his feet.

“Oh, are you sure-” Avi began, a little startled.

“I’m suddenly very fatigued,” Kravitz said, not really untruthfully...

“Yeah me too for sure, imma go pass out,” Taako agreed quickly.

“Good night!” Kravitz said, and they swept out of the living room as quickly as possible, leaving Avi and Johann on the floor by the slowly dying fireplace and the dim glow of the Candlenights bush, now cautiously avoiding each other’s eyes with an all-too-familiar mix of hope and fear on each of their faces.

Taako and Kravitz took the stairs in silence for a moment, letting the sudden burst of energy fade. Kravitz watched Taako’s long braid swing over the back of his deep purple dress, and Kravitz had to swallow back a little urge to unbraid it and run his fingers through it, to see if Taako’s hair was as soft as it looked...

“Has that been going on a while?” Kravitz quietly asked to distract himself as they reached the second floor.

Taako shrugged in the dim hall light. “Honestly? I’m not too sure. Johann has seemed a little more down than usual this year, but I thought maybe one of his fish had died or something. He can so melodramatic about anything.”

“Pot, kettle…” Kravitz replied teasingly, feeling emboldened by the darkness. He felt more than saw Taako roll his eyes.

“Oh, as if you aren’t just as theatrical, Mr. ‘A Cape Can Make A Good Outfit Great,’” Taako shot back, an audible smile in his words.

“But it can!” Kravitz protested with a little laugh. “You saw it for yourself! Irrefutable evidence of the magic of a good cape!”

Taako surprisingly didn’t reply to that. In fact, he went unusually silent and slowed down significantly. Had he said something wrong? Kravitz stopped entirely, tilting his head to one side questioningly even though he knew Taako probably couldn’t see much more than his dark outline. They were on the overhead walkway of the large first floor atrium, thin moonlight streaming in through the upper windows providing a minimum of light. In other circumstances, Kravitz might have thought of it as almost... romantic. Even though it wasn’t. At all.

“Taako?” Kravitz asked. A jewel in one of Taako’s ears flashed as he turned toward Kravitz suddenly.

“Do you ever…” Taako began very softly, and then he trailed off again. Kravitz stepped a little closer, resisting the urge to take his hand.

“Ever what?” Kravitz asked just as softly.

“Nevermind. It’s stupid,” Taako said quickly, too quickly, and this time Kravitz did reach out, fumbling in the dark for Taako’s warm hands and gripping them comfortingly.

Taako laughed nervously as soon as their hands met. “Fuck, those are clammy ones.”

“Sorry,” Kravitz apologized, smiling a little.

But Taako held on when Kravitz tried to pull away, so Kravitz didn’t let go.

“You can tell me,” Kravitz half-whispered, a little embarrassed at how rough his voice was by now. “That is… if you want to, of course. You can tell me anything.”

They stood in the quiet, echoing room for a moment, trading breaths. Taako’s eyes were faintly visible in the pale gray light, looking up at Kravitz with a depth and seriousness he rarely displayed. Kravitz wondered what Taako could see in Kravitz’s eyes.

“Do you ever worry that no one _can_ love you?” Taako breathed out in a rush. “That you aren’t capable or- or deserving of love?”

The stillness felt oppressive now, and Kravitz exhaled too, more slowly. “Sometimes,” he admitted, like it was a secret. He supposed it was, now. Some things spoken in the dark can’t be spoken in the light, or they vanish like shadows.

“Oh,” Taako said simply, his hands gripping Kravitz’s back now.

“...But while I’m no expert,” Kravitz continued quietly, searching what little he could see of Taako’s face, “I think you are one of the people _most_ deserving of love. And I- I think lots of people already love you, in a meaningful way. And someday... someone may love you romantically, too. If they don’t already,” he added breathlessly, swallowing back ' _I’m already certain that someone can love you romantically, I’m so sure of it, in fact I think he might be standing in front of you-’_

Taako inhaled shakily. Kravitz knew Taako well enough to know that this was unusual for the chef, to have so many… _emotions_ and _talk_ about them. Kravitz desperately hoped he hadn’t fucked it up, but the clouded moonlight and Taako’s soft breaths offered no clues. Somewhere, a door shut in the distance.

“Thanks,” Taako said quietly, breaking the long moment.

Kravitz smiled, despite knowing it would be invisible. “It’s always a pleasure to listen to you,” he whispered back.

“Fuckin’ sap,” Taako laughed awkwardly, and the spell broke. Taako pulled his hands away and Kravitz’s palms were immediately colder, something he didn’t usually notice.

“I guess I’ll go live with the evergreens,” Kravitz sighed theatrically, bringing levity back to the conversation.

“...What the hell?” Taako asked.

“With all the other beings full of sap,” Kravitz explained, smiling, and Taako laughed a little too loudly in the atrium before clapping a jeweled hand over his mouth.

“You’re awful, and not funny at all,” Taako told him fondly, and much more quietly.

“Then maybe some sleep will reboot my humor system,” Kravitz joked.

“Yeah, sure. Goodnight, Skellington Jack.” Taako dipped the brim of his wizard’s hat grandly, and swept away toward his room.

“Goodnight, Taako,” Kravitz said gently. He stood still in the middle of the walkway, watching Taako’s new hat bob away down the dimly-lit hallway, before turning and heading back to the stairs to his own room.

* * *

 

The last day of The Annual Starblaster Family Candlenights Extravaganza dawned crisp and cold, and Kravitz woke to the surprise of finding two small presents at the foot of his bed. Curious, he checked the tags before opening them, and read that one was from Lup and Barry, the other from Taako. Kravitz glanced at his extra bag, where he’d stashed his three presents for these exact people. With a slightly amused shake of his head, Kravitz opened the gifts at the side of his bed before dressing casually and carrying his three boxes down to the second floor.

Barry answered the door of the shared room when Kravitz knocked, and immediately smiled. “Hey, Kravitz. What’s- uh, what’s shaking?”

“I didn’t realize our individual gifts were to be delivered secretly by the Candle Knight,” Kravitz joked, and offered two packages to Barry. The chubby man smiled brightly as he took them, and opened the door wider.

“Hey, Lup, the Candle Knight showed up a little late!” Barry said loudly. Lup stuck her head out of another doorway at the back of the room, a toothbrush hanging out of her mouth.

“Yo, Krav! What’s shaking?” she called, and Kravitz had to laugh a little at the couple’s similarity in word choice. Taako’s head appeared just below Lup’s, a tube of something - possibly makeup - in his hand.

“Bone Boy!” he said cheerfully. “Did you like what I got you?”

“Yes?” Kravitz said, though he’d been slightly confused by the 9V batteries inside the wrapping paper.

Taako offered a shit-eating grin. “It’s for your smoke detector.”

Kravitz tried to think of some retort, but Barry and Lup were cackling, and a smile tugged at Kravitz’s lips anyway.

Breakfast sort of melted into lunch, the way meals tend to do at holiday parties with too much food, and then all too soon it was time for most of the guests to say goodbye. Kravitz gave his number to nearly everyone - if he hadn’t given it to them already - and made promises to stay in touch that he might actually keep, for once.

“I’ll see you at the concert?” Kravitz asked Johann, whose eyes were a lot brighter than Kravitz had ever seen them. He also noticed that Avi wasn’t very far away, leaving at the same time.

“Yeah, dude. I’m… looking forward to it,” Johann said, and shook Kravitz’s hand.

“And I hope that guy you talked about notices you,” Kravitz added innocently.

Johann glanced back at Avi, a smile slipping onto his face involuntarily as their eyes met. “It, uh… Apparently wasn’t just him who wasn’t noticing the expressions of… affection,” Johann admitted softly.

Kravitz grinned widely, happy for his new friend, and bid both men farewell. He moved to join Taako on the couch by the fireplace with his refilled mug in hand, and eased himself down carefully, as to not jostle their drinks

“When do you want to leave?” Kravitz asked Taako easily. Nearby, Magnus and Julia were also saying their last goodbyes to Merle and Davenport, while Lucretia and Barry held an apparently friendly argument about nuclear thermodynamics, or something. Kravitz had to admit it was over his head.

Taako gave a lazy, relaxed shrug. “Whenever you want, I guess. We can stay another night if you like, or we can drive home tonight. I’m good with whatever at this point.”

Kravitz had never imagined he’d be saying this about a large gathering of rowdy strangers, but he quirked his lips into a smile and replied, “I’d like to stay a little longer.”

In return, Taako gave Kravitz a rare, soft smile that said a lot about how happy he was that Kravitz and his family got along. That kind of smile sort of made Kravitz’s heart beat faster, and he wondered if Taako knew the effect one little smile could have on him…

But all Taako said was, “Cool,” and the two of them sipped hot cider on the couch and watched the waves kiss the frosty beach, laughter and silly arguing filling the room around them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another one posted! I did not work on the last two chapters any more at all this week! Which is not great!! But rest assured I'll try very hard to get them done in time to be published. Next chapter goes up next week regardless, it's already done. Thanks for reading!!


	3. An Old Photograph

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako had been staring at his descent the entire time, his lips slightly parted, and Kravitz couldn’t fully understand his expression. At best, Taako would be impressed by the drama of wearing a cape to a family Candlenights dinner. At worst, he was about to burst into shrieking laughter at how ridiculous Kravitz looked.  
> “Hey,” Kravitz said as he reached the bottom of the stairs, more casually than he thought he’d be able to manage considering his nerves. “You look great.”  
> “...You’re wearing a cape,” Taako said after a brief second.  
> Kravitz grinned, and gave half a spin to make the ends of the cape flare. “Why, thank you for noticing. It adds a touch of drama to the outfit.”  
> “Uh huh,” Taako said sort of blankly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one's a tad late! In my defense I was traveling to another continent and that's no small task when there's a big ocean in the way. Please enjoy!

“Are you sure it’s not too… creepy?” Kravitz asked for lack of a better word, gazing at the gift he’d acquired for Taako. It hadn’t been easy to find it. And Taako would know that immediately.

“Dearest, it’s far too romantic for it to be creepy,” Istus cooed over the phone.

“It shows dedication. Such a gift is certainly a significant gesture on your part,” Raven agreed. There was a slight pause, and then his mother continued, “And I agree with Istus, I believe your romantic intent will be unmistakable.”

Kravitz groaned. “I don’t- It’s _Secret_ Santa! Taako won’t even know it’s from me unless I decide to tell him. And I don’t want him to think he… owes me, or anything. I just…” Kravitz looked at the gift again and sighed a little, feeling like an idiot for worrying this much. “I just want to make him happy.”

“You will,” Istus said with surety, in that tone of voice that meant she had one of her eerily accurate gut feelings, “I already told you, Kravitz: It’s fate.”

Kravitz grumbled a little under his breath, causing Istus to laugh, but he couldn’t deny that this past year he’d grown closer and closer to Taako, both emotionally and literally. They were in and out of each other’s apartments all the time, and days when they didn’t see each other at all were rare. When Taako cooked in either apartment’s kitchen, Kravitz stood close by and tried to anticipate Taako’s next ingredients and have them available at hand, something at which he was improving. When Kravitz went out on a chase or a stakeout, Taako sent tupperware with delicious food inside, making Kravitz the envy of all other fugitive recovery agents - oh, fine, _bounty hunters_. The term was growing on him, and a couple of action movies Taako introduced him to had helped with that.

But it wasn’t just Taako who was acting differently now, it was Kravitz, too. When Taako came over Kravitz made sure to look a little extra nice, something he hadn’t even noticed he was doing until Lup commented on it. When Taako hummed while he cooked something or read on one of the couches, Kravitz’s fingers itched for pen and paper or piano keys, to capture the melodies and turn them into something new. He’d even written a little song for Taako, a simple little melody with a charming harmony he’d been too embarrassed to show anyone yet, least of all Taako. Kravitz missed Taako when he wasn’t there, finding himself turning to tell his friend a joke only to remember that Taako in fact _didn’t_ live with him full-time.

Though the thought of that changing made Kravitz smile somewhat dreamily.

“So... are you going to give it to him or not?” Raven asked a little impatiently, and Kravitz realized he’d zoned out.

He cleared his throat, and then nodded once, firmly. “Sorry, mother. Yes.” He ignored Istus’ happy sigh. “I’d give it to him anyway, of course, but giving this to him at Candlenights makes it a little more… special.”

“Do tell us how it goes,” his mother said, sounding pleased.

“Even if we already know,” Istus muttered.

Kravitz shook his head a little, smiling down at the gift in his hands. “I’ll call you when we get home, of course, just like last year.”

“You could stand to call a little more frequently, you know,” Raven stated, and Kravitz smiled to himself. “I am always pleased to hear from my son.”

“Maybe it’ll be a New Year’s Resolution for me, then,” Kravitz half-agreed, and he finished wrapping Taako’s secret gift as he also finished the call with his mothers. Once done, he stashed the small, rectangular package in the tiny cleaning supplies closet, grinning as he heard the front door open without so much as a knock.

“Hey Bone-Xylo-phone, guess what I’m making for dinn-errr!” Taako called out musically, and set down something heavy in the kitchen. Kravitz didn’t even bother trying to wipe the stupid smile off his face as he went back out to greet his neighbor, his best friend, his no-longer-denying-it crush.

Maybe, if this Candlenights went well, Kravitz might get up the courage to tell Taako about his feelings by Midsummer.

* * *

 

The three-hour drive to Bottlenose Cover went just as smoothly as last year, with the same dirty Candlenights song lyrics that Kravitz could now somewhat sing along with, and the thrilling feeling Kravitz felt in his stomach every time he thought of the tiny package hidden in the bottom of his suitcase. There was no snow on the beach this year, though the wind was still bitterly cold, and Kravitz was pleased to once again be back in the enormous living room and greeted by the small cheer of welcome offered by the dozen people already there.

“We’re earlier this year,” Kravitz noted to Taako as they both removed their shoes at the door.

“Yeah, looks like we beat a few people here,” Taako agreed, surveying the room with bright eyes.

“Sad that Killian and Carey won’t make it, though,” Julia said with a grin, happily taking a few of their bags on her strong shoulders.

Kravitz laughed. “Yes, I’m sure they’re absolutely miserable in the Sunblessed Islands.”

“Tragically, I’ve never been,” Taako said with an impish smirk, “but I’ve heard that people there often suffer from delicious margaritas and uncontrollable urges to spread sunscreen on their partner.”

Julia chuckled at that as the three of them climbed the stairs at the back of the room, the conversation easily slipping into other places they’d been and what they were like. Kravitz caught himself making mental notes of places Taako wanted to visit, and then had to guiltily remind himself that he couldn’t whisk Taako off on a couples’ retreat. Not yet, anyway…

This year was even more fun for Kravitz, despite Carey and Killian’s absence. He knew everyone there now, some of them better than others of course, and it was easy to relax and swap stories with people he’d easily consider friends. Close friends, even. This year, in addition to the Secret Santa gift, Kravitz had brought five private gifts instead of three - one for Johann, who had attended Kravitz’s guest conducting performance and collaborated with him on a few other projects throughout the year, and one for, surprisingly, Davenport. Turns out the man was the captain of that lovely silver ship docked outside the manor, and had actually run into Kravitz when they were both hunting down a gang of seafaring criminals (“You fought _pirates_!” Taako - and probably Merle to Davenport, too - had said with far too much excitement). After the whole chase was over, Davenport and Kravitz ended up getting a drink, and then found out that they shared music tastes and a secret love of garbage romance reality TV shows. They kind of had to be friends after that.

So the conversation came easily, and dinner was as delicious as it always was whenever Taako, Ren, or Lup had a hand in it, and the first day of the gathering passed so quickly Kravitz felt like he’d accidentally portaled through time or something. The following day, however, felt like it was making up for the speed of the day before.

Candlenights Day seemed to be taking forever.

Kravitz hadn’t even needed coffee to wake up on the morning of the Secret Santa gift exchange. He snuck the present he’d brought for Taako down to the living room and placed it under the glowing Candlenights bush next to a few other presents apparently smuggled down last night, and then tried to read a book to take his mind of the gift exchange. But the words didn’t quite make sense, so he gave up and tried to pass the time by discussing books with the various sleepy house guests who trickled downstairs.

“Y’seem jumpy, Exoskeleton,” Taako mumbled into his coffee an hour or two later, curled up on the couch next to Kravitz.

“I’m just excited for the Secret Santa exchange later,” Kravitz admitted, and tried to stop drumming his fingers.

“Get somethin’ good for ‘em?” Taako asked sleepily. “Or excited about what you’re gonna get?”

“Excited to give,” Kravitz clarified, and glanced toward the presents overflowing from under the bush. “I think it’s going to make them very happy.”

“Mmm. Nice,” Taako said simply, and slurped a bit more.

They had brunch in the living room like last year, and Davenport finally took pity on Kravitz (or maybe wanted to stop all the near-pleading looks Kravitz had been sending his way) and announced that it was time for Secret Santa. The three kids all happily delivered the gifts to the adults, Mookie yelling with very loud delight when he immediately went for the biggest box first and found his name on it. Kravitz watched with amusement as Mookie tore into his gift and pulled out the biggest gummy bear Kravitz had ever seen in his life.

“Shtanks, I love it!” Mookie shouted through the ear of the gummy bear, completely oblivious to the look of resigned fatigue already on Hecuba’s face.

This apparently prompted the gift-opening to continue in a clockwise direction, leaving Kravitz and Taako near the end of the line. Kravitz thought he was going to explode with suspense. He wanted to see if Taako liked his gift, if it was as meaningful as he thought it would be, if Taako would want to know who gave it to him… Some of the Secret Santas shared which gift was theirs, but others chose not to. It apparently didn’t matter to most of the attendees, who were just happy to be getting a gift and seeing the joy they brought to someone else.

Mavis received a sturdy bookbag with a dragon stamped on it, Hurley withdrew a glowing box of some kind and gasped loudly, Merle got a small bag of seeds that made him actually tear up, Avi held up a few pages of sheet music with a blinding grin, Magnus opened a tiny box and found two old, sticky root beer candies - and Kravitz was getting more and more anxious. This was taking so _long_. He felt like a child at his first Candlenights celebration excited to open presents at the crack of dawn, but finally, _finally_ , it was Kravitz’s turn, which meant Taako would be next.

He plunged his hand into the gift bag he’d been assigned and his fingers met something papery. Kravitz pulled out a slim envelope and pried it open fairly messily in his haste. A slip of paper was inside, with a wine-red logo curling across the top.

“The ‘Chug and Squeeze’?” Kravitz read, confused. He skimmed the rest of the paper, and discovered it was a gift certificate of some kind, for him and a guest.

“Oh, that’s a wine and pottery place!” Merle contributed, nudging Davenport next to him. “We went there once. Nice place. Good plants in the corners.”

“It’s popular with couples,” Davenport added, giving Kravitz a rather knowing look.

Kravitz cleared his throat uncomfortably and shoved the paper back into his bag. The sooner his turn was over, the sooner he could see Taako’s face when he saw his gift.

“That’s very thoughtful! Thanks to, er, whoever you are, for getting this.” He turned to his neighbor with a smile. “And now it’s all you, Taako.”

“It always is,” Taako sniffed with a showy flip of his hair, and Kravitz couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across his face, half amusement and half nervous anticipation.

Taako tore the paper off the small box and lifted the lid. He set it aside and gently unfolded the tissue paper over the contents of the box.

And then he froze.

Kravitz’s heart was in his throat. Maybe this was too weird. Maybe he should have given it to Taako another way, or less publically, or as soon as he had found it after months of searching-

“What…” Taako said softly. The room was silent now, everyone noticing that something was off.

“Koko?” Lup asked from her place across the room, a tinge of worry in her voice.

“But where…” Taako couldn’t seem to get the words out. Kravitz looked over his shoulder and looked at the framed photograph nestled inside. It was a simple photo, a little blurry, showing two identically adorable children, maybe about five or six years old, giggling in the arms of a smiling older woman with laugh lines around her eyes.

Kravitz had needed months of research and called in a couple favors from other law enforcement departments, but eventually, he’d gotten slightly-less-than-legal access to a certain case file. And the few pictures within that had never seen the light of day.

Lup got up and crossed the room when Taako still hadn’t moved, and now Kravitz was very close to panicking. When she peered over Taako’s shoulder, Lup gasped, too.

“Is that-” she whispered, and Taako managed a nod. “How the fuck…”

Taako gave a very strangled laugh. “Who gave me this?”

The room was silent. Oh shit. Oh no. He’d fucked up, he’d fucked it up, he’d done this all wrong- Kravitz did _not_ want to come forward and get yelled at in front of everyone. He would tell Taako it was him later, and then get kicked out of the house in private. Fuck, he’d- he would have to move apartments. He’d lose all these friends over one bad gift choice- this was so stupid, Kravitz had been so _stupid_ -

“This is the best gift I’ve ever gotten, and that’s not a goof,” Taako said then, his voice low and wavering with emotion. “This- I don’t- Lup and I don’t have any pictures of our Aunt Tammie, the fucking one and _only_ good legal guardian we had. Whoever managed to find this, I…” Taako trailed off, still staring at the photo.

“Thank you,” Lup said softly, her voice equally unsteady with feeling, and Kravitz shifted over so Lup could sit next to her brother. The twins pressed close together, fingers running over the glass so, so gently, and both staring at the picture of the three of them like if they blinked it would disappear.

Julia thankfully allowed them a little privacy by loudly opening her gift next, drawing the room’s attention to her instead. But Kravitz watched the Tostaada twins’ faces, and tried his best to commit the awed, overjoyed look in Taako’s eyes and the disbelieving, trembling smile on Lup’s face to memory. Maybe it hadn’t been such a stupid idea after all.

* * *

 

The evening brought with it the tradition of dressing up all fancy - for whoever felt like participating - and Kravitz had gone a little more over the top than he’d maybe meant to. Like last year he was dressed in a suit over a button-down shirt with a tie, but the similarities stopped there. The suit jacket was a deep red with shimmering gold tones, lined with black that matched his dress pants. His tie was gold with tiny red roses scattered across it, secured by a black skull tie pin (okay, maybe it was kind of an aesthetic thing now. He’d been maybe a little bit goth in high school, and it was very easy to fall back into a skeleton-centric fashion sense with all of Taako’s nicknames). His hair - which had taken the longest - was coiled carefully on top of his head in intricate braids, with only a few looser locs to frame his face or drip with gold beads near the back of his neck. The part he was proudest of and most nervous about, however, was the cape.

Normally Kravitz would never wear something like this outside of a costume party, but he had to admit that he liked the dramatic addition to the rest of his ensemble. The smooth fabric draped fluidly over his shoulders and clasped above the knot in his tie with two interlocking diamond-like jewels. He half-twirled once in front of the mirror, admiring how the ends of the cape flared out to show off the satin-shiny gold underside, and then tugged at his suit jacket once more before taking a deep breath and heading downstairs. He’d taken a little longer than he’d meant to, getting ready, and as such was slightly late this year. Kravitz was still pretty sure his, as Lup would say, “Hawt Lewk,” would be worth his tardiness.

However, he had failed to realize that meant he’d see Taako already waiting at the bottom of the stairs. And that meant he had to focus very hard on minding his steps, and not on gaping at Taako.

Taako was practically gleaming under the lights. He wore a matching suit jacket and pants made out of some sort of iridescent silvery material that made it look like rainbows danced across his shoulders when he moved. Black embroidery curled down his wrists and up his ankles, as well as across his back in a swirling pattern ending at his shoulder blades. When Taako turned, Kravitz was surprised to see that the waistcoat of the suit was the perfectly mirrored inverse, a black material with bright silver-rainbow threads twining around the jeweled buttons. To top it all off, Taako was wearing a pointed black hat with a wide brim and matching iridescent silver stars scattered across it. Apparently this was another “fuck you” to the people (Lup) who’d said he couldn’t pull off Kravitz’s gag gift from last year’s Dirty Santa game.

And again, it should have been too much. It should have been ugly. But Kravitz was still feeling much more heat in his face than usual when he met Taako’s eyes and gave his incredibly handsome neighbor a small smile.

Taako had been staring at his descent the entire time, his lips slightly parted, and Kravitz couldn’t fully understand his expression. At best, Taako would be impressed by the drama of wearing a cape to a family Candlenights dinner. At worst, he was about to burst into shrieking laughter at how ridiculous Kravitz looked.

“Hey,” Kravitz said as he reached the bottom of the stairs, more casually than he thought he’d be able to manage considering his nerves. “You look great.”

“...You’re wearing a cape,” Taako said after a brief second.

Kravitz grinned, and gave half a spin to make the ends of the cape flare. “Why, thank you for noticing. It adds a _touch_ of drama to the outfit.”

“Uh huh,” Taako said sort of blankly, and Kravitz raised his eyebrows. Did he get the color scheme wrong or something?

“Hot damn, Krav, you going to host an awards show after dinner?” Lup said, sweeping in to sling an arm around Kravitz in a quick half-hug. “You look killer!”

“Thanks,” Kravitz smiled, glancing away from an apparently transfixed Taako. Lup was in a deceptively simple asymmetrical black dress this year, her hair swept to one side and enough leg on display that Barry might be in danger of passing out. “You look wonderful, Lup.”

“Well someone had to show Taako what fashion is,” Lup said with a wink in her brother’s direction.

“You wouldn’t know real fashion if it walked in wearing this exact hat and suit,” Taako smirked as he gestured to his own outfit. “Oh wait - it did!”

Barry, who was dressed more casually in a button-down and a pair of blue jeans, appeared on the stairs at this moment and did indeed stop in his tracks when he saw what his girlfriend was wearing.

“See something you like?” Lup almost purred, and Kravitz quickly pulled out of Lup’s grasp. He was happy for them, but he did _not_ want to get in between the slow smile taking over Lup’s face and the flushed expression on Barry’s. Kravitz offered his arm to Taako instead, who took it gladly as they left Barry and Lup to make eyes at each other.

“Grossarooni,” Taako said out of earshot, but he sounded rather smug.

“Apparently it’s a contagious phenomenon,” Kravitz added dryly, gesturing to Avi and Johann’s linked hands as they approached the dining room just ahead. The two men were giving each other the same enamored look Kravitz remembered from last year by the fireplace, and then Johann tenderly combed his fingers through Avi’s hair before they shared a brief kiss at the entrance to the dining room.

“They seem really happy,” Kravitz continued when Taako didn’t reply. “Johann’s been writing music for Avi that he’s run by me a few times, and oh, Taako, it’s so beautiful. You can just _feel_ the love-”

Kravitz was interrupted by a tug on his arm as Taako stopped walking in the doorway of the dining room, an odd expression on his face. Confused, Kravitz stepped backwards.

“Taako?”

“...Well, it is tradition,” Taako said strangely. Kravitz frowned.

“Tradition?” he asked curiously. Taako pointed upwards, that odd look still on his face, and Kravitz followed the gesture to see-

“Mistletoe,” Taako said, “I mean, if you don’t wanna there’s no pressure, but it _is_ Candlenights.”

“So it is,” Kravitz said quietly, and tentatively leaned forward, aiming obviously for Taako’s cheek.

“Booooo,” someone said close by, and Kravitz reared backwards, startled. “Come on, Krav,” continued Magnus, who had unexpectedly materialized behind them in line to enter the dining room, “If you’re going to kiss someone under the mistletoe it’s gotta be _good_. Unless the other person’s not into it or something, but I mean, we all know Taako’s got a-”

“-a firm desire to uphold family traditions!” Taako finished loudly, glaring at Magnus like he’d personally ruined Candlenights for every child in the country. “So yeah, kiss on the ol’ cheek there, let’s roll with it, my dude.”

Kravitz frowned again, this time in dismay as well as puzzlement. Taako didn’t sound happy at all, and his shoulders were high and tense.

“I- Taako, if you aren’t comfortable with a kiss then we don’t have to follow tradition, of course-”

“No! I mean, nah, I’m super comfortable with it,” Taako said quickly, one hand flailing in emphatic agreement. “I’m like- nine hundred percent down with a kiss. Maggie here is just being an idiot, but what else is new.”

Magnus shrugged, unbothered by the insult. Julia raised one eyebrow and placed the hand not on Magnus’ waist on her own hip.

“So can you just do whatever you’ve agreed to do so we can get in and eat?” she asked pointedly.

“Hmm, somebody’s hangry,” Taako snorted. “Wait for five seconds, Jules, it’s not like-”

And then, before he could change his own mind, Kravitz simply grabbed Taako’s hand from his arm, bent at the waist, and pressed his lips to the back of Taako’s warm hand.

Taako cut himself off mid-sentence to stare at Kravitz with a similar expression to the one he’d had when Kravitz came down the stairs earlier. It was a wide-eyed look with extra color flaring across his cheeks and the tips of his ears, his lips parted ever so slightly in surprise. The expression made the heavy feeling in Kravitz’s gut flutter madly.

“Great, you got some spit on his hand,” Merle said grumpily, “Can we all come through, now, or do ya need to ponder it some more?”

Kravitz straightened quickly and found to his embarrassment that half the guests had queued behind them, waiting to get into the dining room themselves.

“My apologies,” Kravitz said hurriedly, and offered his arm to Taako once more so they could get out of the way. Taako took it easily, the weight of his hand on Kravitz’s arm a welcome warmth, and the two of them found neighboring seats at the long dining table.

Taako was rather quiet during dinner, and Kravitz hoped he hadn’t done anything wrong by kissing his hand earlier. He just didn’t want Taako to be uncomfortable, because they were just friends after all, no matter how much Kravitz wanted to propose otherwise. He just wanted to be sure he wouldn’t be ruining their friendship before confessing his romantic interest in Taako, because even if Taako didn’t want to date him, Kravitz still wanted Taako’s laughter in his life… Hell. Just the thought of Taako’s laughter made his stomach do flips. Uncertainty about crushes sucked, Johann had been right about that.

“Hey guys?” a low voice said from down the table, and the group quieted over their dessert conversations to listen. Johann was leaning forward, looking a little nervous but happier than usual. He continued, “If any of you want to, I’m going to go to the ballroom and play some music. You are all… welcome to come, I guess. If you want.”

Sloane smiled at him from the other end of the table. “That sounds really nice, Johann.”

“Is this a dancing thing?” Ren asked, her eyes bright with excitement.

“I mean… it can be, I guess,” Johann said with a purposefully casual shrug. At Johann’s right, Avi turned a mega-watt grin on the rest of the table.

“Come on, guys, it sounds fun, right? It’s gonna be so cool, we haven’t danced in the ballroom in like, two or three years? Oh, and I brought some of that _good stuff_ to stock the bar in there if you want to _really_ get lit-”

“Hot shtocklate?!” Mookie exclaimed immediately. Did he _always_ have something in his mouth?

“Uh- uh, yeah, that’s exactly what we have,” Avi said with a painfully fake laugh. Kravitz was amused to see Mavis rolling her eyes.

“Aw yeah! Heck yeah!” Mookie cheered, and slid out of his chair and darted off to the side, likely toward the ballroom.

Kravitz had never gotten a full tour of the mansion, but it checked out that there was a ballroom in here somewhere. There was probably a hot air balloon and a secret pirate treasure cove, honestly, nothing in this house could surprise Kravitz anymore.

Everyone seemed enthusiastic about the idea of dancing - though no one could ever be as enthusiastic as Mookie - and the large group trickled out into the main atrium and then through an ornate set of doors nearly twice as tall as Kravitz.

“You been in here before, Boneman?” Taako asked, walking beside Kravitz without being escorted this time.

“Not yet,” Kravitz replied, and intended to add to the statement, when the ceiling opened up and Kravitz had to remember how to breathe.

The ballroom was _masterful_. Crystalline chandeliers dripped with glimmering jewels and cast a soft but steady light over the entirety of the enormous space. The floor was painted with whorls of curling patterns that reminded Kravitz of the embroidery on Taako’s suit, and one wall was made almost entirely of floor-to-ceiling windows. A balcony illuminated in moonlight outside the windows made Kravitz think some of those windows were really folding doors, but his attention was drawn away too quickly to be certain. Most of the other walls were intricately lined with gold swirls and white lamps that looked like pearls, and one corner held a small raised platform with a grand piano, a music stand, and a violin case that almost certainly belonged to Johann. One side of the room was covered by a long countertop shielding shelves of liquor from the rest of the dancefloor. A few chairs lined the edges of the room, and Kravitz wondered how many people this could possibly accommodate. Hundreds? Maybe a thousand?

“How fucking big is this house,” Kravitz asked rhetorically under his breath, and Taako snorted with laughter.

Johann unpacked his violin as everyone milled around the room, and then pressed a small button on a cord looped around the empty music stand. Immediately Johann lifted his bow to the strings, and a quartet somehow began to play. The guests stood still for a long moment as the notes rang clear and clean, and it honestly took Kravitz a minute to realize Johann was playing with a recording of three other string instruments, and not doing some sort of bardic magic to play a quartet on his single violin.

“This music feels pretentious,” Taako noted without any malice in his voice.

“We are in an enormous ballroom dressed to the nines,” Kravitz pointed out.

“But- Actually, you know what? That’s fair,” Taako hummed. Magnus and Julia were swaying slightly offbeat to the music, and Merle was doing something with his hips that had to be an affront to any deity out there while Davenport watched with a mix of fondness and exasperation. Kravitz decided this was probably Davenport’s usual expression among his family members. Roswell and Angus were dancing surprisingly well together despite a significant height difference, while Noelle and Mavis stood off to the side and sort of swayed with the music instead of fully dancing. Mookie was dancing with Hecuba and Glymeth, or rather, dancing _around_ them. He was too hyper to really enjoy a nice waltz.

“May I have this dance?” a voice asked brightly, and Kravitz turned to see Ren standing there in a floaty orange dress with a wide skirt. And she was looking at him. Expectantly.

“Me?” Kravitz asked in surprise.

“Yeah, unless you don’t wanna,” Ren chuckled.

“Oh,” Kravitz said, and unintentionally glanced at Taako. But his neighbor was already turning towards his sister and definitely-future-brother-in-law, winking at Kravitz as he danced away.

“It would be my pleasure,” Kravitz agreed to the dance. He didn’t know Ren particularly well, which was surprising since she and Taako were fairly close from what Kravitz understood from listening to Taako talk about work. Ren took Kravitz’s left hand and he placed his other delicately on her side. Ren broke dancing tradition by leading the steps, not that Kravitz minded at all. He was a decent dancer, but Johann’s music had become somewhat more upbeat and he was worried he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the skill promised by the glint in Ren’s eye.

“Joyous Candlenights,” Kravitz offered after a few moments to get their rhythm going. Ren twirled herself under Kravitz’s arm and grinned at him.

“It certainly is.” She repositioned herself, one hand tight on Kravitz’s shoulder. Very tight. “For now.”

“Wha-” Kravitz began in surprise, and then Ren twirled _him_ , and he went with it a little less than gracefully.

“So I don’t mean to overstep here or anything - no pun intended - but are you into Taako or not?” she asked very bluntly, if thankfully quietly.

Kravitz sputtered for a second. “I- Well I- That is a difficult-”

“Yes or no,” Ren said simply, and took a smooth step to avoid colliding with a flailing Merle.

“Er… Perhaps a little,” Kravitz admitted, glancing around to see if anyone else had heard him over the music.

“So yes, you like him? Romantically?” Ren clarified.

“I- yes, but-”

“Then I gotta ask, what’s takin’ you so darn long?” Ren hissed, spinning them out of earshot of a laughing Angus and Roswell.

“What?” Kravitz was thoroughly confused. Well and truly befuddled. What was happening?

“He’s not gonna wait forever,” Ren said sternly. “You’ve been _dancin’_ -” she spun Kravitz again, “-around each other for two years! Pun intended! But for real though, don’t play with his emotions like that if you don’t intend to date him, that’s not cool.”

“I don’t- I wasn’t- I would never!” Kravitz settled on, actually offended by the very thought. “I just- I don’t want to ruin what we have already, and I’m not going to force my feelings onto him just because it’s something I want.”

Ren eyed him critically, but she didn’t step on his toes or anything, so maybe this was an acceptable answer. “I believe you,” she said in her slight accent. “But for real, consider makin’ a move already. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, Taako’s not too good with emotional vulnerability, but all the signs are there, that he-” She stopped and made a face, before continuing, “That he trusts you, at least. And likes you, though it’s not for me to say in what way.”

Kravitz nodded, sidestepping another near collision neatly. “I would never betray that trust. That’s why I haven’t, er, ‘made a move’ as you suggest.”

A smile pulled at one side of Ren’s mouth. “Fair enough. I don’t want to pressure you either way or give you the, uh, ‘shovel talk’ or anything, I just don’t wanna see Taako get hurt.”

“I’m glad he has such protective friends,” Kravitz said easily, and with that the tense mood passed away like dew under the sun.

“You seem like a good dude, even if you’re apparently a nightmare in the kitchen,” Ren teased him, and at that Kravitz laughed.

“He told you about that?”

“No, I can just smell it on you,” Ren chuckled.

“Ah, the telltale lingering ash of past dinner failures,” Kravitz pretended to sigh, and with similar banter they finished the dance much more pleasantly than how they’d started it.

Kravitz broke away after the song ended and left to get a drink from Avi, who was mostly leaning on the bar and staring dreamily at Johann across the room instead of “getting lit”. Before Kravitz had even finished the glass of wine, Angus politely asked him to join in some kind of traditional group dance with him, Roswell, and Lucretia. And so Kravitz was up and down over the next hour and a half, dancing with nearly every attendee in some way or another. Johann played stiff-sounding Baroque music, and covers of Katy Perry songs, and a little bit of everything else, it seemed. Kravitz had a wonderful time, but by the time Johann clicked off whatever hidden speakers were accompanying him, Kravitz was about to admit defeat and go off to bed.

“Hey, uh,” Johann said very close to a mic clipped to the music stand, “This is the last one, I’m getting, you know, kinda tired. Thanks for all dancing and listening, though, it was… pretty cool.”

“Hell yeah it was!” Avi yelled enthusiastically, and Johann blushed a little.

“Y-yeah, so anyway, uh. I’m actually not playing this one. Everyone please welcome… the super dope Barry Bluejeans and Lup Tostaada.”

Kravitz peered around Roswell’s broad shoulders in surprise to see the couple now on the platform, Lup taking overly dramatic bows while Barry just waved sheepishly.

“I didn’t know they played any instruments,” Kravitz commented in pleasant surprise.

“Neither did I,” Taako unexpectedly said from next to him, sounding rather put out.

Kravitz raised his eyebrows in a silent question.

Taako rolled his eyes. “They’ve been cooking up some big project and refused to tell me what it was. I thought it was a research project of some kind, but apparently not.”

“Want to dance to whatever it is?” Kravitz asked impulsively, hardly paying attention as Barry settled in at the piano and Lup took the violin from Johann with a wide smile.

Taako seemed to avoid looking at Kravitz as he shrugged. “Yeah. Sure, sounds like it wouldn’t be totally lame.”

“High praise,” Kravitz said with a smile.

And then, with a long breath taken as one, Barry and Lup played.

Something about it felt… well, at risk of sounding like Istus, it felt inevitable. It felt like a conclusion, and like a beginning. Like something was blooming in full for the first time. _There was romance in every measure, and longing in every note._ And Kravitz was holding Taako in his arms while two of his closest friends playing their hearts out, looking into the eyes of someone who meant the world to him, and love bubbled in his throat as lightly as champagne.

“I’m glad you liked the photo,” Kravitz said quietly, afraid that the love in his throat would spill out into the room if he didn’t distract himself.

Taako’s eyes widened slightly, and then he gave a tiny, breathless laugh. “Of course,” he muttered. “How’d you get that, anyway?”

“A rift in space-time,” Kravitz said seriously, and Taako laughed.

“Convenient. Also not very plausible,” he replied.

“Are you saying you don’t believe me?” Kravitz asked playfully, as the music swelled, taking his heart with it.

And Taako was apparently moved by the melody too, because he had that same look in his eyes that Kravitz remembered from another stolen moment in the moonlight from last Candlenights. A serious, breathless look that made Kravitz’s heart feel like exploding or melting or beating at the speed of light.

“I wouldn’t say I don’t believe you. I… You seem like a good upstanding guy,” Taako replied, and they took a long smooth step in time with a drawn-out note from Lup’s violin. “...But otherwise you’re pretty okay.”

And Kravitz laughed at the unexpected end of that sentence, and lost his footing for a moment, and then he and Taako ended up much closer than they’d been before. Chest to chest, almost sharing breaths, and Kravitz couldn’t have looked away from Taako’s eyes even if the apocalypse had struck the entire planar system.

“Beautiful,” Kravitz murmured, like the word was drawn straight from his heart without his mouth’s permission.

“Yeah, they’re not bad,” Taako agreed, glancing briefly at the stage in the corner.

And Kravitz took a deep breath, like before skydiving, or going underwater, or cresting the top of a mountain. Or before starting a duet.

“I didn’t mean the music, Taako.”

Taako’s eyes were wider now, his shoulder a little tenser, and he looked at Kravitz with an entirely unreadable expression.

“What did you mean, then?” Taako asked softly, and the undercurrent of unmistakably romantic music buoyed Kravitz’s confidence enough for him to reply.

“You, Taako.” And he swallowed once when Taako didn’t immediately punch him, and then continued, “You’re so beautiful. Every day. Whether you’re cooking in sweatpants in my apartment kitchen or dancing in the fanciest suit I’ve ever seen, you’re beautiful. I didn’t think I’d be able to tell you now, but for so long, Taako, I just keep looking at you and _hoping_ , that someday I would be able to- to say that… You’re beautiful to me, not for the eyeliner you’re so good at applying or for the way you make any ridiculous hat look fantastic, and not even just for your - very handsome - face.”

Taako looked like he wasn’t breathing, but neither was Kravitz. So maybe that was fine! Who needed air! Breathing was overrated! Kravitz forced himself to take another deep breath before he passed out.

 _Like starting a duet_ , he reminded himself, and continued.

“It’s just…” he laughed a little bit in disbelief, in happiness, “It’s just _you_ , Taako. You’re beautiful. The you that’s inside.” He took another shaky breath. “I- I think I really like you Taako. I _know_ I do. And I have for a long time, I just didn’t know if I should say anything, and I don’t expect anything from you of course, but-”

And then Kravitz felt a sharp tug on his necktie, and his lips were suddenly against Taako’s, warm and breathless, and even the heartrending music fell away as Kravitz gasped into the kiss and _returned_ the desperate motion until it was less desperate and more… joyful.

Kravitz finally pulled back with a last deep breath, and found Taako’s hands still wrapped around him, trembling slightly.

“So,” Kravitz had to clear his throat once or twice, “Uh, is this a mutual thing, then?”

“Your mom may be a Raven, but I didn’t think you had a birdbrain,” Taako replied snarkily, also a little breathlessly, but he wasn’t letting go of his hold on Kravitz.

“Oh,” Kravitz said, a giddy smile on his face that he couldn’t have stopped if he’d tried.

Someone wolf-whistled then, and Kravitz finally looked away from Taako and realized they had gained a small, very smug-looking audience. Most of the couples in the room were apparently having similar moments, however, with Hurley and Sloane walking to the door, Barry and Lup already gone, and Davenport and Merle slow-dancing to no music at all on the far side of the room lost in each other’s eyes.

Roswell, Avi, Noelle, Lucretia, Hecuba, and Angus all looked very smug though.

“As I predicted,” Angus said in a satisfied tone.

“That’s Angus-speak for ‘I told you so’,” Magnus whispered loudly on his way out with his wife, and a few people chuckled.

“My apologies,” Kravitz said, embarrassed in front of the group for the second time that evening.

“Hmm. Not mine!” Taako sniffed, “I have no regrets. Come on, Bone Daddy, we’re blowing this popsicle stand.”

And with linked hands and reddened cheeks, Kravitz and Taako left the ballroom, echoes of “Salut d'Amour” - “Love’s Greeting” - still thrumming in their chests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY YOU IDIOTS good job on confessing your love at last. In canon Taakitz is anything but a slowburn, but this was.... such tasty drama. If you liked this, please consider leaving a comment! That really does mean everything to me. See you next week, assuming I get the next chapter completed on time. Peace out!


	4. A Short Question

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I just love… love,” Barry sniffled. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get all sappy, but I’m really glad I got to know you, dude. And I love seeing Taako so happy.”  
> “You’re going to make me cry,” Kravitz replied, and went over to give Barry a comforting half-hug. “Are you alright?”  
> “Yeah,” Barry said with a deep breath. “Sorry, again, I don’t mean for it to get weird, I just am so, so happy for you guys, now that you’re going to get enga-” Barry suddenly stopped talking, his eyes going wide.  
> “In what?” Kravitz asked curiously.  
> “En- In- More in love!” Barry said quickly. Kravitz tilted his head in confusion, and Barry continued to stumble through his words, “You’re going to get even more in love! And I love love, yep, love it so much, love- uh, love you!”  
> “I love you too,” Kravitz replied with mild amusement, confusion abated, and patted Barry firmly on the back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kravitz you dear, sweet, totally oblivious man. Nat 1's on all romance-related perception checks, probably.

The Annual Starblaster Candlenights Extravaganza was upon them once more, but this year, Kravitz was feeling as dour as Johann (pre-Avi Johann, that was - Johann dating Avi was much more prone to small smiles and playful gazes… which actually made Kravitz feel worse right now, if he thought about it too much).

Taako was being distant. Kravitz wasn’t sure what was wrong: Taako had said it was “nothing,” but Kravitz’s insight was high enough to see through that, not that it was a difficult check. He’d tried to talk about it, he’d tried giving Taako extra space, he’d tried giving Taako extra attention, he’d talked to Lup and Barry to see if they knew what was wrong... but no one seemed to be able to tell what was wrong with Taako - or what was wrong with Kravitz?

This wasn’t looking like a very Joyous Candlenights.

The drive to the beach house wasn’t silent, but Taako seemed to be strangely absent like he had been the past three weeks or so, only humming to the Candlenights songs under his breath instead of joining Kravitz in the now-traditional Tostaada Twins’ Dirty Candlenights Album. Kravitz himself fell silent after a few songs, and the drive was only filled by the sounds of Taako and Lup over the car speakers muffling giggles through their poorly-recorded lyrics.

“Taako-”

“Hey, my man-”

They both spoke at the same time, and then immediately paused. This time, there wasn’t friendly laughter at their congruous timing.

“You go ahead,” Kravitz said quickly.

Taako smiled, a little mechanically. “No, no, if you had something-”

“Please, Taako,” Kravitz interrupted, trying to focus on driving in the snowy conditions without getting distracted by how much his stomach was twisting into anxious knots.

There was a slight pause, and Taako exhaled, turning down the sound of his own voice singing about Merle fucking the Candlenights bush before continuing. “Look, Krav, I know I’ve been kinda… checked out recently. And… well, it’s not fair to you, my man. I just want to make sure you know that you, uh, didn’t do anything wrong, and- and I am super lucky to be dating you, like the luckiest dude in the planar system…”

When Kravitz didn’t respond, Taako inhaled and continued a little more quickly, “Anyway, I’m going to try real hard to be one hundo percent there for you over Candlenights. I’ve got a… big project coming up, one that I can’t talk to you about, and not being able to tell you stuff is super hard, like, shit, look, I wasn’t even supposed to tell you I had a project, but you’re so damn easy to talk to… Not that that’s a bad thing!” Taako added hurriedly, arms waving madly. “I just wanna tell you everything, all the time, and that intimacy… is a little scary, not gonna lie.”

“You can always tell me anything,” Kravitz said finally, sighing a little. He wasn’t sure how to feel about this. Why was a work project so secret? Was Taako doing something dangerous? Or illegal?

And since when did Taako let bureaucratic policy influence his decisions? Taako had said loudly on multiple occasions (some more appropriate than others) that he didn’t give a flying fuck about the rules and regulations of the Bureau of Benevolence. So why follow policy on this?

“I can sign a nondisclosure agreement for the B-O-B if that would let you talk about it to me at home,” Kravitz offered, trying to keep any hopefulness out of his voice.

Kravitz was looking at the road, but Taako sounded a little confused at first. “For- for the B-O-B?”

“So you can talk about this super secret project?” Kravitz prompted, glancing over at his boyfriend when the road conditions allowed. Taako’s eyebrows lifted suddenly and he laughed, maybe nervously?

“Oh! Right, yeah, of course, my project, yeah, that we were just talking about. Yeah I dunno if the B-O-B would, uh, wanna get involved like that. With you, I mean.”

Okay? Ouch. “What do you mean?” Kravitz asked, still weakly aiming for neutrality.

“It’s not- Hoo, boy, I really- I really stepped in it this time, huh?” Taako gave a tiny nervous laugh. “I really just goofed this one up. I, uh, I didn’t mean it like that. I just-” Taako sighed, tugging on one of his earlobes a little nervously. “Listen. Listen.”

“I’m listening,” Kravitz said unnecessarily, because Taako was already talking again.

“I don’t think the form would help in this case, but! This project is going public very soon. Like right after Candlenights at the latest. And I promise I’ll tell you all about it then, Krav. You will know everything I know. No secrets.”

Kravitz processed this in silence for a second, considering. He didn’t want to fight with Taako, especially not over Candlenights. And if this work project was going to be released to the public in less than a week anyway it couldn’t be too dangerous or illegal or otherwise bad. Right? So it was probably fine.

“Alright,” Kravitz said at last, and he heard Taako’s tiny exhale of relief. “I don’t want to ever push you, Taako, but I just… You _have_ been really distant, and I… I worry about you when you get like that, when you won’t communicate with me.”

Taako sounded dejected. “I know.”

“Next time, could you please just tell me it’s a confidential project sooner?” Kravitz asked, glancing at Taako with a serious expression. “I think it would save me a lot of, er... unnecessary worry.”

Taako was already nodding. “Yeah! Yeah, sure, of course. I don’t see anything like this coming up again, actually, _ever,_ so it’s no prob. You got it, Skeletor.”

And that was that. Taako seemed more at ease, and made a genuine effort to show he was listening to Kravitz and was a lot more engaged than he had been the past few weeks. It was an effort Kravitz deeply appreciated, and by the time they pulled up to the beachside manor, they were both laughing again.

The sleek black car already parked crookedly in the yard was a familiar sight, though never in this location, and Kravitz grinned at it.

“Looks like they beat us here,” Kravitz said as he hauled suitcases out of the trunk.

“Well you know, punctuality is greatly overrated,” Taako sniffed, and even went so far as to carry _two_ bags this time as they hurried to the warmth of the house. The unspoken apology in the gesture further soothed Kravitz’s nerves about their relationship. Everything was fine. And if he wasn’t worrying about Taako or their relationship, maybe he could spare some time to worry about how his mothers were going to fit in with the Starblaster family (the name of which had never quite been fully explained to him in a way that made any sort of sense).

“The life of the party has _arrived,_ ” Taako announced grandly as he flung open the door.

“And Taako’s here, too,” Kravitz finished teasingly, and received an eye roll and a scoff in return.

Just like Kravitz’s first year here, a chorus of voices answered their arrival with friendly greetings and questions about food. But this time the voices all belonged to friends, and Kravitz grinned back at the crowd as Roswell and Julia emerged.

“Another year survived!” Julia crowed, and took a few of Kravitz’s bags from him. Roswell kindly took both bags from Taako, who pretended to faint over them in dramatic gratitude. Kravitz smiled, and looked back at Julia.

“It’s good to be back. How are my mothers doing here, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Julia laughed, the big hearty laugh that Magnus still teared up about whenever he started rambling about all the things he loved about his wife (which happened very frequently).

“They’re doing great! Raven and Lucretia both apparently hate this same guy, Lucas Miller-”

To Julia’s amusement, the mention of that name was met with an aggressive chorus of “Fuck that guy!” from Raven, Lucretia, Merle, Taako, Magnus, Killian, Carey, Kravitz, and even Noelle, who rarely said a harsh word about anyone. The room fell silent for a second before a few titters of laughter started back up again, and Julia rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, that happened before, too.”

“Lucas Miller is an asshole and he can- he can kiss my perfectly-shaped magical ass!” Taako huffed as he began climbing the stairs behind Roswell.

“And he’s a wanted criminal for some fairly nasty things,” Kravitz grumbled. “It’s no wonder he’s unpopular here.”

Julia chuckled. “I can tell. Anyway, they’ve been bonding over mutual hatred of that guy and everything he did, and meanwhile on the other side of the spectrum Istus and Merle apparently share a mutual close friend, so they’ve been really getting on well. Also I think Istus might want to adopt Ren, they’ve been talking up a storm.”

So it was going very well, then. Usually Kravitz’s mom had to stand in the corner for an hour looking murderous and aloof before Istus convinced her to talk to people.

“Nothing like bonding through mutual hatred or mutual friends,” Kravitz agreed cheerfully. They dropped off the bags in Taako and Kravitz’s shared room and returned to the rest of the family fairly quickly, where Kravitz happily engaged in various short conversations before making his way over to his mother.

“It’s not so bad once you get used to the noise,” Kravitz said in lieu of a greeting, and Raven gave him a small smile in return.

“Good to see you too, my son,” she said flatly, and Kravitz grinned.

“I’m so glad we got to host you and Taako with Lup, Barry, Magnus, and Julia last New Year’s,” Istus commented, sipping from her glass of wine. “It was good preparation for this!”

“Though nothing could truly prepare us for _this_ ,” Raven added dryly, and stole her wife’s glass for a much longer sip.

Kravitz didn’t need to facilitate conversations between his mothers and the other guests, so he quickly moved on to catching up with the rest of the room. Everyone had been able to make it this year except for Hekuba, Glymeth, and their kids Mavis and Mookie. Apparently the family would be visiting Merle and Davenport for New Year’s, but were spending this Candlenights with Glymeth’s elderly parents. Angus cheerfully reported that Mavis had already texted him twice saying it was super boring without the whole Starblaster gang.

Taako, Ren, and Lup had long since disappeared into the kitchen, and Davenport’s dinner announcement was met with the usual cheers. Kravitz got a helping of almost everything, pleased to see that all of his favorites were on the menu this year. He sat between Noelle and his mother, across from Taako, and even dared to engage in a very brief fork fight with Hurley until Lucretia stopped them with a single look.

“Hey, dumbasses! Listen up!” Merle’s husky voice called out, and the many conversations slowly died down. “I’ve been lookin’ at the, uh, the weather foreplay-”

“Gross,” Taako and Magnus said together.

“-uh, no? Forecast! I meant forecast! Anyway,” he ignored the nearly-uncontrollable giggles Magnus was poorly suppressing, “I’m very pleased to announce that this year there’s enough snow for a Hunger Battle!”

“A what?” Kravitz whispered to Noelle, but she was already talking in excited undertones with Killian and didn’t hear.

“For those of you who are new,” Merle thankfully continued over excited murmurings, “A Hunger Battle’s just a big, uh, snowball fight, but like with cool forts and teams and sort of a… capture-the-flag element to it. The winners get first pick of the leftovers to take home - hence the name - and as you can imagine, with that kind of prize it’s extremely competitive.”

Damn right it was competitive. Now Kravitz was already thinking about who he wanted on his team and how he’d take down some of the others, and he hadn’t even done this before.

“So!” Merle clapped his hands. “No one has to participate who doesn’t want to, but we’re going outside at eleven a.m. to start the show! No pre-building allowed, but forming teams beforehand is permitted, as are various forms of bribery and trickery. Seriously harmful sabotage is not allowed. We got more rules tomorrow, but for now that’s all you need to know, I guess. So see you all tomorrow, hopefully!”

Kravitz immediately leaned over the table toward Taako. “Darling,” he began in his most charming voice, but Taako was already grinning too widely and shaking his head.

“Too late, homie! Cha’boy’s bringing back the Tres Horny Boys! Plus ‘Cretia, natch.”

Kravitz pouted, but his partner was wholly unsympathetic, and high-fived Magnus as Julia apparently went through a similarly unsuccessful conversation with her husband.

Noelle, Killian, and Carey were already doing some sort of secret handshake, so that looked bad for Kravitz’s chances there. But wait, down the table-

“Lup!” Kravitz called, and she turned immediately.

“What up, Bone Face!”

“Would you and Barry like to gang up on my boyfriend with me?” Kravitz asked with a cocky smile.

“Now hang on!” Taako began indignantly, but Lup cackled and fist-bumped her partner.

“Oh, hell yeah,” Barry replied for both of them, grinning widely as he adjusted his glasses. “The Tres Horny Boys and Lucretia won last time, we’re not letting it happen again!”

“Traitor!” Taako moaned theatrically, one hand fluttering to his forehead. “I can’t believe I’ve been betrayed by my very own partner and my sister and my honorary brother… it’s a tale as old as time, that love will fail you in the face of-” he poorly stifled a laugh, “-of epic snowball fights!”

“ _C’est la vie_ ,” Kravitz smirked.

“ _Je ne parle pas français_ ,” Taako replied fluidly, pretending to inspect his nails, and therefore didn’t see Kravitz’s cloth napkin until it landed neatly over his face.

* * *

 

Despite their new team rivalry, Taako and Kravitz managed to get a good night’s sleep together anyway. Kravitz awoke at eight-thirty in the morning - probably the earliest he’d ever gotten up at the beachside manor - and he and his partner got dressed in warm clothing and sturdy boots (Taako’s boots were covered in rainbow glitter, but they didn’t have any extra heel, so maybe they really were the most practical boots he owned).

Kravitz grabbed a bowl of cereal once downstairs and joined Lup and Barry by the bookshelves, eyeing the other groups with suspicion.

“Good morning,” he greeted his teammates.

“Morning,” Barry replied absently, attention clearly on the notebook his nose was buried in.

“He’s designing a snow fort,” Lup explained on his behalf. “Barry got up early and analyzed the structural integrity of a few different options, and now he’s chosen one, apparently.”

“Exactly,” Barry said, but it was unclear if that was in response to Lup or his own head.

Kravitz leaned on the bookshelf and swept his eyes over the assembled people. “So how many teams are we competing against?”

Lup’s expression intensified, only it was slightly undermined by the colorful Lucky Charms in the spoon she gestured with. “Killian, Carey, Noelle, Ren, and Julia seemed to have joined up around the ping-pong table, but Ren didn’t play last time, so she may just be hanging out, it’s unclear. Avi, Davenport, Angus, and Roswell are probably a team, I doubt Johann will be playing with them but you never know. And then of course…” Lup gestured toward the fireplace, and Kravitz had to hide a grin for the sake of Lup’s disgruntled expression.

Magnus, Taako, Merle, and Lucretia all had on matching T-shirts, clearly homemade, that said “TEAM BUBBLE” and had the description “Tres Horny Boys + Lucretia” underneath. Magnus had already ripped the short sleeves off, Merle had spilled coffee on his, Taako looked amusingly torn between pride and disgust at his own attire, and Lucretia was expressionless as always which was somehow even funnier than any of the others.

“Now I want stupid matching T-shirts, and I hate that they did this to me,” Lup groaned.

“We’re the lowest in numbers,” Barry said suddenly, looking up from his notebook with rather wild eyes. “Is anyone else going to play?”

“Hang on, I’ll ask around, babe,” Lup said comfortingly, patting Barry’s arm. Then she turned around and absolutely shattered Kravitz’s eardrums by yelling, “Anyone else want to be on the coolest team ever?!”

The other teams, naturally, booed her with friendly enthusiasm. But to Kravitz’s surprise, his mother approached them, her hair both literally and figuratively down, as she gave them a rare half smile and said, “I think I’d be interested.”

And that was a real game changer.

The Hunger Battle (which Merle clarified was _absolutely not_ a rip-off of _The Hunger Games_ ) was as epic as promised. Kravitz came back inside soaking wet and laughing uncontrollably like he hadn’t done in _years,_ teasing Magnus for absolutely beefing it after Julia winked at him, and joking with Davenport about using “snow bombs” to escape unseen, and complimenting Noelle for absolutely kicking ass on the battlefield.

“You know, I’m just glad Team Bubble didn’t win again,” Lup said after they’d all changed into dry clothes and huddled up by the fireplace, still laughing and talking about the best plays of the game.

“And if it couldn’t be us, I’m glad it was Team RAAD,” Barry agreed, and raised his mug of hot chocolate respectfully toward Roswell, Angus, Avi, and Davenport.

“Hey, we were allies! Why not Team Sweet Flips?” Killian protested.

“You did betray us,” Raven reminded them, though she didn’t look very stern when she said it, so Kravitz interpreted her tone as amused.

Carey grinned back unrepentantly. “The alliance wasn’t going to last much longer anyway! I took the opening when I saw it!”

Kravitz snuggled deeper into the couch and Taako’s side as the playful argument continued, with lots of ‘helpful’ commentary from the uninvolved parties.

“Tired out, huh, Skullface?” Taako asked, sipping from his mug.

“If someone was going to make an Olympic sport out of snowball fights, I should have known it would be this family,” Kravitz replied, smiling up at his boyfriend warmly.

Taako offered a little smile back, hiding it with his cup unsuccessfully. “Ah, shut up, you loved it.”

“I did,” Kravitz agreed easily, and looked over the laughing group with a pleasant warmth stirring in his chest that wasn’t just from the hot chocolate in his system. “I’m really glad it snowed this year. That was fun.”

“I gotta say, I’m kinda surprised your mom joined in,” Taako commented, glancing over to where Raven was almost excitedly telling Istus about the battle.

“She’s surprisingly competitive,” Kravitz answered fondly, and set his mug on the floor before wriggling down far enough on the couch to rest his head on Taako’s shoulder. “I’m going to nap. Wake me up when it’s time to dress for dinner, please?”

“Mmm, napping lazily is _my_ move, you’re kinda infringing on my brand,” Taako replied, but his free hand was already entwining itself with Kravitz’s, so he took it as a ‘yes’.

A few hours later, Kravitz was gently shaken awake and informed it was time to go “get beautified”, and he and Taako - who had also apparently fallen asleep - made their sleepy way upstairs to begin getting ready. They had previously agreed that they wanted to surprise each other with their looks, but also coordinate, so in cooperation with Lup and Barry they had a plan in place.

This year Kravitz wore a black suit jacket dusted with tiny dots of metallic gold that caught the light and shone beautifully. His pants were simply black, but the waistcoat was a solid, silky gold sheen. His tie was solid black and offset the gold of his upper half, and Kravitz felt somewhat like a billionaire who used solid gold toilets or something.

“Is this too dramatic?” Kravitz asked Barry as he finished his metallic gold eyeliner. Barry looked up from fiddling with his cufflinks and eyed Kravitz critically.

“It’s slightly uneven, make the right one a bit more- yeah, there, great. No, I think you look fantastic,” Barry said honestly, and Kravitz smiled at him in the mirror.

“Thanks. I feel almost nervous about the fancy dinner this year, though-” Kravitz laughed a little, “-this is the first Candlenights I’m fully _allowed_ to gawk at how amazing Taako looks in whatever he’s wearing, so if anything I should be less nervous.”

“Oh, your gawking was _not_ subtle the previous two years,” Barry chuckled, and Kravitz ducked his head slightly in embarrassment. Barry hurried to add, “But if it makes you feel any better, Taako couldn’t hide his gaping either. You know we had a betting pool on when you two would get together?”

“Betting? And you didn’t invite me?” Kravitz joked.

Barry smiled and shook his head. “That seems hardly fair, don’t you think?”

“But that’s the best kind of gambling: rigged in my favor!” Kravitz replied with a laugh.

“I’m just glad you two are happy now,” Barry continued, a sort of wistful look in his eyes. “It took me so long to admit to even myself how I felt for Lup, and you two have just fallen in love so- so _easily_ , and naturally. It’s really- it’s really beautiful.”

Kravitz paused in the application of his last bits of makeup, and turned to look at his friend. “...Barry, are you _crying_?”

“I just love… love,” Barry sniffled. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get all sappy, but I’m really glad I got to know you, dude. And I love seeing Taako so happy.”

“You’re going to make _me_ cry,” Kravitz replied, and went over to give Barry a comforting half-hug. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Barry said with a deep breath. “Sorry, again, I don’t mean for it to get weird, I just am so, so happy for you guys, now that you’re going to get enga-” Barry suddenly stopped talking, his eyes going wide.

“In what?” Kravitz asked curiously.

“En- In- More in love!” Barry said quickly. Kravitz tilted his head in confusion, and Barry continued to stumble through his words, “You’re going to get even more in love! And I love love, yep, love it so much, love- uh, love you!”

“I love you too,” Kravitz replied with mild amusement, confusion abated, and patted Barry firmly on the back. “Want to go hide our gifts before making our grand entrances?”

This year the group was playing Cryptic Santa, which was apparently a game where they just bought gifts for closest family and then hid them somewhere in the house. Kravitz was told he could make cryptic rhyming clues, plant Sudoku puzzles, tie yarn all over the house, or “just anything really” to lead his friends to their respective gifts. Since most of the group had fallen asleep in the afternoon, they’d have the gift hunt after Fancy Dinnertime, so clues needed to be hidden soon.

“Yeah, sounds good!” Barry agreed enthusiastically. He stood and grabbed the tote bag he’d brought into Kravitz and Taako’s room with his change of clothes. “I just brought six gifts this year, so it shouldn’t take too long. One’s for you, though, so we’ll need to split up.”

“I brought seven, and one is for you as well, so splitting up it is,” Kravitz said, going to the closet and withdrawing his own bag full of wrapped gifts. “What did you use for clues?”

Barry grinned. “Well I was _going_ to use college chemistry problems, but I decided it was too hardcore since Lup was so into it. So I went with high school calculus problems instead.”

“You’re a villain, Barry Bluejeans,” Kravitz groaned.

“What did you pick?” Barry asked with interest.

Kravitz shrugged. “It’s different clues for different gifts. One is literature-based, a couple have riddles, one is based on musical theory- that one’s for Johann - and a few other things to mix it up. This is an extraordinarily odd game, you do realize that?”

Barry laughed. “Yeah, it’s kinda weird, I guess. But it’s all in good fun! I remember one year Hurley convinced Sloane that her next clue was in the swimming pool, and-”

A knock at the door interrupted them. “Hey!” Taako’s voice called. “I need Barry’s opinion for a quick sec!”

“Oh, I’ll see you downstairs!” Barry said cheerfully, and hurried out the door, careful to keep Taako’s outfit out of view. Kravitz sighed a little, and waited for a few minutes before leaving the room, bag of gifts and assorted clues in hand.

He ran into a few other people, all similarly dressed up in finery, and Kravitz traded heartfelt compliments with each of them as they set up their odd clues around the mansion. In twenty minutes Kravitz finished, and came up from the basement to the living room, where his eyes immediately found Taako and his heart simultaneously forgot how to beat.

Taako looked amazing, as always, but he’d outdone himself again. Immediately their theme was clear, for everywhere Kravitz was shining gold, Taako was radiant silver. His suit looked almost the exact same as Kravitz’s in different colors. His suit jacket and pants were a very dark blue, the jacket covered with bits of silver like stars. His vest was a solid silver-white, and a dark blue tie drew his suit together. Naturally, Taako was also wearing a broad-brimmed wizard’s hat as he had the past two years, this one patterned with silver stars and lines that reminded Kravitz of moonbeams.

Apparently Taako was doing a similar analysis of Kravitz’s outfit, and when their eyes finally met, Taako’s were full of heat as well as a something softer that Kravitz knew immediately was the love they’d settled so comfortably into. They drew toward one another like magnets, like planets, completely unable to look away from the other.

“You look absolutely stunning,” Kravitz said as he and Taako met in the middle of the room.

“You too, my man. We’re the sun and moon,” Taako replied, running his hands along Kravitz’s shoulders. “Like the Pokémon thing.”

Kravitz laughed at the unexpected comparison, and ducked under the brim of Taako’s hat to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Yes, I always aim for a Pokémon aesthetic in my Fancy Dinner fashions.”

Taako hummed a little, fingers dancing through Kravitz’s hair. “I gotta say, though, this is really nice. Lup and Barry did a great job helping us coordinate our ideas.”

The two of them kissed under the mistletoe in the dining room doorway again, and then seated themselves across from Avi and Johann. The four of them chatted steadily through dinner, which was delicious as it always was, and Kravitz even managed seconds on dessert before he had to give up. Conversations continued up and down the table, punctuated by laughter as usual, until Davenport clinked his fork on his wine glass and stood, waiting for the room to quiet.

“Thank you all again for coming to The Annual Starblaster Candlenights Extravaganza. If everyone’s finished with dessert, I think we should start our game of Cryptic Santa so we still have a few hours before bed.”

“Sleep is for the weak!” Magnus yelled, and got a whoop from Carey in response.

“Be that as it may, now still seems like a good time to start,” Davenport replied, not without amusement.

“I was always intrigued by your stories of past odd gift exchanges,” Raven said to Kravitz as they all slowly filed out to the living room for the distribution of the first clues. “I must say, this is one of the oddest traditions of which I have heard, much less taken part in.”

“Agreed,” Kravitz nodded, but then smiled. “They’re wonderful, aren’t they?”

“Indeed,” his mother said with no hesitation, and then withdrew a slip of paper from some unknown pocket and handed it to him. “Best of luck solving my puzzles, son.”

Kravitz smiled and pulled out a paper of his own, handing it to her and receiving a rush of warmth from the way her eyes lit up with interest. “And the same luck to you, Mother.”

He made his way to Barry, Lup, Davenport, Johann, and Angus to deliver clues before giving the last one to Taako. Along the way, he received his own clues from the others, which were mostly papers, but also included a piece of red thread and a long strip of leather like an unfinished belt.

Taako had also apparently saved Kravitz for last, and handed him a note with a smirk. “Good luck solving this one, Bone Daddy. It’s going to be a long night for you.”

“We’ll be up together, then,” Kravitz said with equal confidence, and passed Taako his clue.

Most of the puzzles were fairly easy to solve. He went through Johann’s music- and poetry-themed clues fairly easily and finally found a paperclipped bundle of sheet music with notes in Johann’s handwriting.

Raven and Istus’s gift of a new book was hidden by symbol-based clues, and Kravitz got stuck on a few before figuring out things like “the dragon’s mouth” was the oven and so forth.

Barry’s gift was indeed hidden by math problems, but with Angus’s help Kravitz muddled through them and got a pair of tickets to hear the Neverwinter Orchestra in concert.

Lup’s gift was not as cryptically guarded, but was in the middle of a self-made obstacle course that was somewhat challenging to complete in his suit.

Angus had tied red threads on certain helpful objects, and would say things like, “Isn’t it obvious?” if any of his gift recipients couldn’t figure out the next step (Kravitz found it worth mentioning that absolutely none of the clues were obvious).

Davenport had given Kravitz the strip of leather, which took him a full forty minutes to figure out that if he wrapped it around the bannister, the seemingly-randomly-placed letters spelled out an actual clue.

Taako’s clues were saved for last, and Kravitz had taken long enough that some of the other gift hunters had gone to bed with their treasures in hand. He’d seen Taako still wandering around, and he’d bumped into Sloane a few minutes ago, but the house was a lot quieter now. He unfolded Taako’s first clue as he returned to the living room, loosening his tie a little more as he read.

_“You are my light in the dark_

_For we have a spark”_

“Sap,” Kravitz mumbled, smiling. He flipped the paper over, but that was it. He read it a second time, frowning in thought, and looked around the room. Light in the dark… did something glow in the dark? Kravitz flipped off the lights in the living room, but only the embers of the fireplace kept the room dimly lit.

“A spark,” Kravitz repeated, humming thoughtfully, and turned the lights back on as he walked over to the fireplace. Sure enough, behind a large handmade vase patterned with slightly wonky flora, there was a second slip of paper.

_“You complete my heart_

_Let us never be apart”_

Kravitz frowned thoughtfully, even as his heart fluttered a little. Completing something, maybe something shaped like a heart? Or maybe the clue was with Taako, since it said they shouldn’t be apart? He tapped his chin, looking around the room for inspiration as he tried to recall anything heart-shaped in the house and wondered where Taako could be by now. Kravitz wandered into the main atrium of the house, eyes scanning the walls for possible clues, when he found a picture of himself and Taako that he didn’t remember sending to Merle and Davenport. He hurried over to it with interest, and smiled to himself when he saw that the frame had a small heart carved into the top of it. Gently, Kravitz lifted the picture frame off the wall, admiring the photograph for a moment.

It was the day they had gone to an amusement park called Wonderland, which had been a memorable day for many reasons, but the part Kravitz chose to remember was how his heart had felt full to bursting every time Taako’s eyes lit up or his mouth quirked into a smile. He would normally feel bad about all the scams Taako pulled on the vendors, but then again, Kravitz had ended up arresting the owners, so he told himself a few scams were probably fine. In this picture, a slightly blurred one taken on a roller coaster (which was probably not up to codes), Taako had on another of his now-signature wizard-style hats, clutching it desperately with one hand as he visibly whooped in excitement. His other hand was locked with Kravitz’s, who was also yelling with excitement as they rocketed down the slope, his hair whipping around his head.

Remembering he was on a quest for a gift, Kravitz shook his head and did nothing to quell the silly smile on his lips as he flipped the frame over, revealing another note stuck in the back.

_“I feared commitment_

_But you were persistent”_

Hmm. This wasn’t very much to go on. Something Taako feared? That seemed unlikely in this house, since the Beachside Manor (nobody would call it “Merle-garitaville” despite Merle’s insistence) was, in general, a very fear-free zone. If Kravitz was persistent, maybe it was something he did a lot? In the dim entryway, Kravitz shrugged to himself. Seemed as a good a lead as any. He immediately headed to the staircase and jogged down to the basement music room, where, to his surprise, a light was shining out through the door.

“Hello?” Kravitz announced his presence, leaning in through the doorframe before going all the way in.

“Took you long enough,” Taako answered with a teasing smirk, leaning back in a rolling chair to prop his feet up on a desk covered in sheet music. He was still in his fancy garb, hat and all, but the shiny earrings in his ears were new, Kravitz noted with pleasure.

Kravitz grinned back as he approached his partner. “I suppose you win this time, dearest.”

Taako’s expression softened into a more genuine smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Yes, well, I’m but a simple idiot wizard-chef, but I do know how to bribe the World’s Greatest Detective.”

“Cheating!” Kravitz cried, still smiling, which undercut his mock outrage a little. He leaned on the desk over Taako, tipping the brim of the hat back slightly. “No wonder he was so unhelpful with Barry’s math problems, if he was busy trying to get back to you for your- your schemes!”

Taako’s smile grew, looking up at Kravitz with light in his eyes. “Hey, what can I say? Learn how to bake and the world is yours, my man.”

“And what if _you’re_ my world?” Kravitz murmured softly, bending down to press a swift kiss to Taako’s lips. Taako laughed into the kiss, making Kravitz’s veins buzz.

“That was a _bad_ one, Krav. A real stinker,” Taako said, but he was grinning, and there was color high in his cheeks, so Kravitz only let his mouth curl back into a smile.

He did that a lot around Taako.

Kravitz pulled back slightly from the kiss, saying a little breathlessly, “Sometime, I’d like to have another talk about… other kinds of jewelry.”

Taako’s eyes widened a little, and Kravitz’s built-in anxiety alarms started going off. Kravitz hastily leaned back further.

“Or not!” he hurried to say. “I know you said you didn’t want anything too seriously committed last time it came up, but that was a year ago, and I just wondered-”

“Yeah, uh-” Taako interrupted, rolling back in the chair a little bit. “It’s actually something I’ve been… thinking a lot about. I’m a little more-” Taako swallowed, and Kravitz’s heart was beating so loudly, surely Taako could hear it.

Taako took a breath, slowly continuing, “I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’m not really… opposed to the whole. Getting hitched. Thing. With you. You specifically, I mean, not just like- I’m not about to marry some rando, obviously-”

“That would disappoint your boyfriend, for sure,” Kravitz joked, and Taako’s face relaxed somewhat, his shoulders lowering slightly from where they’d been hunched in worry.

“So you’re still- You’re pretty down? With, uh, that big ol’ commitment, and uh, permanence, even the forbidden ‘m-word’ thingy?”

Kravitz slowly let one hand trail down Taako’s jawline, smiling as dopily at his boyfriend as he wanted to, for once. “Yes, Taako. I’ve been committed to you for a long time, officially or otherwise. And that doesn’t have to change.”

Taako’s nimble fingers swept Kravitz’s hand off his cheek, kissing the back of the conductor’s hand in the same way Kravitz had first kissed Taako’s under the mistletoe. “What if I want…” Taako began softly, his eyes searching Kravitz’s with surprising seriousness for a moment, before he blinked a few times and looked away, a tiny smile gracing his lips.

“What?” Kravitz prompted.

“I’ll tell you later,” Taako said with kind dismissiveness, releasing Kravitz’s hand. He cleared his throat and asked, “So, uh, you looking for something in here or what?”

Kravitz pouted a little at the obvious subject change, but he _did_ want to see what Taako’s Candlenights gift was, and it was pretty late already. They could continue this another time.

“Yeah,” Kravitz agreed, standing up and unfolding the paper from his pocket. “I thought maybe the clue was something I’m persistent in. Hence, music. Also, you’re here, so that’s a good clue.”

“Smart _and_ hot, I’m so into this,” Taako commented proudly, propping his heeled boots back on the desk.

Kravitz chuckled, and then moved over to the piano. If he was right, then maybe under the lid…? He lifted the top of the piano, propping it open as he pulled out his phone and used the flashlight on it to scan the darkened interior. Sure enough, another piece of paper rested on some of the strings.

“Easy,” Kravitz said smugly (even though it hadn’t been particularly so), closing the lid and holding up the new clue to the light.

_“In loving me dearly_

_I could see clearly:”_

“If you need a hint, let me know, not so I can help but so I can more thoroughly enjoy your struggle,” Taako said eagerly.

“See clearly,” Kravitz muttered, ignoring his boyfriend for the moment, “Is this about the telescope upstairs?” He looked over to Taako, whose smug expression had slackened into surprise for a moment before recovering.

“Shit… Uh. Maybe,” Taako said unhelpfully. Kravitz grinned, and headed for the stairs.

The topmost level of the manor was one of the strangest, in Kravitz’s opinion. It was glass-enclosed on one side, where Merle grew plants too delicate to survive in the garden outside year-round, and the other side was mostly dedicated to a home observatory, complete with an enormous telescope. Kravitz went to the observatory side immediately, heaving the large wooden door open as Taako followed him up the stairs.

“I would like to take you on a picnic under the stars in the summer,” Kravitz suddenly said, looking up at the currently closed panel that slid open on clear nights to allow the telescope to access the skies. It might make a nice date on which to propose, if Taako really was down for marriage.

“Sounds dope,” Taako replied with a nod of approval, “As long as you don’t cook anything for this hypothetical picnic, obviously.” Kravitz filed that away carefully before he approached the telescope, finding a lone piece of red string leftover from one of Angus’s puzzles, and then, taped to the underside of the barrel, a piece of paper with another two lines.

“These haven’t been too hard to follow, Taako,” Kravitz teased, unfolding the clue.

“Yeah, well, look who found his gift first, Skeletor,” Taako shot back, pointing to his new earrings.

“Touché,” Kravitz conceded, and turned his attention to the next clue.

_“My love for you is wide as the sea_

_So I’m asking you, Kravitz-”_

“What is it you want to ask me?” Kravitz joked, smiling over at Taako, who only let one side of his mouth curl up in response.

“Wait and find out,” he said simply, and Kravitz shrugged.

“Okay… the sea.” He glanced up at the chef, a pleading expression already on his face. “Taako, if it _isn’t_ outside, please tell me now, because it’s probably terribly cold out there,” Kravitz implored.

Taako shuffled his feet slightly. “I’ll tell you this much, my man: it’s not _not_ outside...?”

Kravitz sighed. At least capes were a little bit warmer than a normal suit jacket.

He and Taako exited the house together, going out the side door by habit even though the huge front doors had technically been closer. It was as cold as expected, a light curtain of snow still drifting down from a dark sky, and fairly dark except a few lights from the manor casting odd patterns in the yard. The remnants of their Hunger Battle littered the landscape, odd chunks of snow scattered unevenly across the beach. But everywhere the faint moonlight brushed the landscape, the snow drifts sparkled so much that they almost seemed to glow, and the lazily floating snowflakes made the view even more scenic. At the end of a small dock, Davenport’s silver ship bobbed gently in the waves, and the sound of gently lapping water soothed Kravitz even though he was _fucking freezing_ out here.

“You sure you don’t want to go back for coats, Ghostrider?” Taako asked, stepping out behind Kravitz into the crunch of fresh snow.

“I’ll just be fast,” Kravitz grumbled, and true to his word, stepped immediately out into the rest of the yard, eyes scanning the ground. “Want to give me hot or cold?”

“Everything is cold, it’s literally snowing,” Taako grumbled. “But yeah, sure. Cold.”

Kravitz walked to the right.

“Colder.”

Left?

“Colder. You’re freezing, actually-”

“Damn right,” Kravitz muttered, and Taako laughed. He walked out toward the beach.

“Warmer,” Taako confirmed when Kravitz looked back for guidance. “Although, it would be more fun if it was ‘spicier’ and… ‘milder’? ‘Blander’? No, wait- ‘spicier and sweeter’, yeah, that’s it. That’s the new ‘hotter and colder’.”

“Very ‘chef’ of you,” Kravitz responded with amusement, hugging his arms to his chest as he wandered farther along the beach, closer to the ship.

“Warm- Spicier,” Taako corrected himself, sounding a little breathless from the cold. Kravitz frowned, turning back to check on his partner. Taako had his hands shoved deep in his inside jacket pockets, but managed to smile back at Kravitz when he turned around.

“Should I finish in the morning?” Kravitz asked, glancing up at the dim moonlight filtering through the clouds, and nearly getting a snowflake in his eye for the trouble.

“Nah,” Taako answered quickly. “You got this. You’re pretty spicy.”

“I hope so,” Kravitz sighed, and crouched to brush away some snow from an object that turned out to be a bit of seaweed. “Am I looking for another paper or the gift now?”

He waited a second with no response, and then turned with a confused frown. Taako was a few steps down the beach, wind blowing his styled hair out of order somewhat, a few snowflakes sticking to his suit. Kravitz could hear a slight muttering from him, but nothing else. He stood again, brushing off his _very_ cold hands, and followed Taako down the beach to a small rise touched by moonlight, where Taako had stopped and was looking in the direction of the narrow gap in the cliffs where the road cut through.

“Is it blocked off?” Kravitz asked, and Taako startled slightly, nearly dropping something as he spun in the snow.

“Is- what?” he asked.

Kravitz raised his eyebrows, stepping back apologetically. “I just said: is the road blocked off?”

“Oh,” Taako said, looking back toward it and squinting. “Dunno. Pretty dark, even for my expert peepers. Can you see?”

Kravitz took another step past Taako, similarly straining his eyes in an attempt to pierce through the veil of light snow blowing around them. “Hard to say,” Kravitz finally decided, turning back to Taako with a shrug. “If it’s blocked we can just wait-”

He stopped. Taako was holding a slip of paper in his hands, the smallest one yet. And he looked surprisingly nervous.

“Taako…?” Kravitz began, but his partner began speaking.

“You- You are my light in the dark, for we have a spark,” Taako said slowly, reciting something he’d clearly memorized. “You complete my heart; let us never be apart. I feared commitment, but you were persistent.”

The clues? They were an entire poem, apparently, one Kravitz was enjoying with rapt attention.

Taako seemed to struggle for a second, before taking a breath and continuing, “In loving me dearly, I could see clearly: My love for you is wide as the sea. So, I’m asking you, Kravitz Reaper-”

Here, Taako held out the tiny slip of paper in his hand. Almost in a trance, Kravitz took it, reading along as Taako said quietly,

_“Will you marry me?”_

The wind blew snowflakes into the silence between them, Kravitz gaping as he stared uncomprehendingly at the few little words in his hand.

“Fucking hell,” Kravitz said, his admittedly ridiculous ‘work accent’ slipping slightly into his voice as his nerves jumped into his throat. He looked up again, and found Taako on the ground on one knee, a small box open in his hand, with a glittering ring nestled inside.

“ _Fucking hell_ ,” Kravitz said again, with feeling.

“Yeah, well,” Taako began with an anxious laugh, “I thought the, uh- the pretty words might be a good idea,” he continued nervously. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to say something really dumb in the moment, you know, like, uh, I think you’re a hot piece of ass-”

Taako froze up, his breath clouding in the air.

“Fuck! I said something stupid anyway,” he muttered, surprise in his voice that was so, so endearing. “I just meant- Uh, the point is: Krav, I love you. And I have for a long time, even if I don’t say it a lot, out- out loud. And I’m not afraid of permanence if my permanent is _you_ , if that makes any sense. So, uh, yeah. Will you… Will you marry me and make a dumbass wizard chef the happiest guy in the multiverse?”

Kravitz felt like the snow was falling in slow motion, the waves had disappeared from the shore, the cold had mysteriously stopped affecting him, and all that was left was Taako, radiant in the moonlight, and offering him… Oh, he had to answer, of course, duh, he had to-

“Yes,” Kravitz said, his chest nearly in pain from how close his heart was to bursting with giddy joy, “Yes, Taako- Taako of course, yes, a million times yes-”

“Oh, thank Pan,” Taako breathed in relief, dropping his chin to his chest and breathing deeply.

“Taako?”

The chef looked back up, a genuine, bright smile on his face. “I’m just, uh- very happy to get out of the snow, that’s all.”

Kravitz didn’t buy that for a second. He helped Taako up, and then, without pausing for another second, swept him into a deep, passionate kiss.

“I can’t believe you beat me to it,” Kravitz breathed between kisses.

Taako laughed lightly, tugging Kravitz impossibly closer. “It was a- a near thing. I almost proposed to you right there in the music room- and a dozen times before that, just whenever you were with me- and I had the ring and everything already, I just felt so-”

“We’re getting married,” Kravitz interrupted in awe, unable to stop himself, holding the back of Taako’s neck with one hand and the oversized wizard hat with the other. “We’re getting- we’re getting _married_.”

“We’ll be husbands,” Taako whispered, shuddering a little as Kravitz groaned happily into his neck. “We’ll be super gay husbands, and it’s going to be- so good-”

“ _Husbands_ ,” Kravitz repeated, capturing Taako’s lips again as he fought his own bright grin. “Taako- _Taako_ -”

The man in question - Kravitz’s _fiancé_ \- pulled back a little, a small laugh escaping him. “Is this a- a good time to mention that we have an audience?”

“No,” Kravitz said petulantly, but drew back after one final kiss. Then the words caught up to him fully. “Wait, who-?”

“Hell yeah!” a distant voice called. Kravitz followed the sound to see Merle, Davenport, Lucretia, Barry, Magnus, and maybe a few others crammed together at an open upstairs window, where Lup had a large camera in her hands pointed in their direction.

Magnus whooped loudly in agreement with Lup’s yell, and then shouted, “You should come inside if you’re going to have engagement sex! You don’t want dick frostbite!”

“Maybe it’s our kink!” Taako yelled back, but let a gleefully laughing Kravitz tug him back toward the house.

Raven pulled Kravitz into a tight hug as soon as he stepped foot in the home, Merle immediately crushing Taako in a similar embrace.

“I’m so happy for you, Kravitz,” Raven said with feeling, and he hugged her back just as tightly, smiling into her shoulder as he heard Taako squawking with pretend indigment as Magnus openly wept and Merle started going on about his fee for conducting the ceremony.

But eventually, Kravitz and Taako wormed their way out of the family congratulatory hugs, and tumbled into Taako’s room, still laughing in joyful disbelief.

“I’m so fucking lucky,” Taako hissed, taking off his fancy suit jacket with, for once, little regard for where it ended up. “Kravitz-”

“ _I’m_ the lucky one,” Kravitz insisted, shedding his clothing with equal haste, throwing his tie to the ground and hopping out of his shoes. “Taako, I love you so much, we’re getting _married,_ we’re getting fucking married-”

“I love you, too,” Taako breathed back, and then paused in their desperate kissing to pat his pocket. “Wait the- the ring, do you want-”

“ _Yes_ ,” Kravitz said fervently, holding out his left hand while his right continued to wander. Taako fumbled with the box in his haste, fondly telling Kravitz to shut up when he laughed, and then withdrew a wide silver band with engraved swirls and three shimmering stones embedded in the top. It was a fairly simple ring, by Taako’s standards, and Kravitz immediately loved it. He’d want to inspect it more, later. Taako slid the ring onto Kravitz’s finger with shaking hands, and the second it was on, Kravitz was kissing him again.

“Do you- ah, do you like it?” Taako asked, fingers swiftly working on Kravitz’s shirt buttons.

“I love it,” Kravitz whispered immediately. “You picked out the perfect one- I want to get _you_ one, too-”

“Hell yeah, second proposal,” Taako said, breath hitching as Kravitz’s fingers began doing a few clever things. “I’m, uh- very into it.”

“I’m very into _you_ ,” Kravitz answered with feeling,

“Same,” Taako agreed in a growl,

and they proceeded to make that abundantly clear for the rest of the evening.

* * *

 

The morning held similar bright smiles and wandering hands, and when Taako and Kravitz finally emerged downstairs, the family whistled and cheered in a way that was both highly embarrassing and very supportive. Kravitz’s ring received a lot of praise, as did the pictures Lup had taken last night. Even though the darkness and snowfall, there were a few lovely shots of Taako’s proposal.

“Still not convinced you had to do it outside,” Kravitz pretended to complain, except he had started smiling at some point last night and couldn’t seem to stop, so the mock complaint didn’t exactly ring true.

Taako smirked, his arm curling around Kravitz’s waist. “It was for the _drama._ I knew you would understand, darling.”

Kravitz snorted, pressing a kiss to Taako’s cheek. “Well, it certainly has defined the rest of our relationship.”

“Exactly, I’m just trying to keep on-brand,” Taako agreed, also still grinning, and cheerfully flipped off Lup when she rolled her eyes.

“So when do you want to have the wedding?” Davenport asked, settling in on the couch next to Roswell.

Kravitz let his smile quirk to one side, looking down at his fiancé. “Shall we stick with the Candlenights theme at this point, love? For the drama?”

“For the drama,” Taako agreed, and sipped his mug of coffee as Ren asked about the catering.

Meanwhile, Istus leaned over to her wife, a smug smile on her face unnoticed by Kravitz or Taako, and whispered confidently, “I told you so.”

Raven sighed, though not too unhappily, and passed over the five dollars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Got it done! Still not totally pleased with the ending of this one and where I cut things - speaking of which, are you guys interested in deleted scenes? Because I have... A LOT, mostly from summer and one or two from Taako's POV... Let me know.  
> Anyway, another one down, just one more to go! Hope you're enjoying it, drop a comment if you have the time! Thanks so much, have a lovely week :)


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